[hnbad]

Government bad! Here's an example of businesses using their power over the government to do bad things. Let's deregulate businesses further so they don't need to use the government to do bad things because they can do them themselves.

Did I miss anything?

[verisimi]

Not really - but I think its a message that bears repeating.

Most people have been through the governmental education process and have been taught that the government is the only fair/legal/possible answer to all our ills. That 10+ formative years of propaganda to counter. Even more if you go to university and licensed to do your job - you are now vested in an exploitative system, that initiates harm against others.

Understandably people will want to stick with the devil they know until a/ they have worked through the alternatives and b/ understood that the problems commonly blamed on people are actually the natural outcomes of government policies.

[hnbad]

You're making an excellent argument why centralised power is bad. You're not addressing how those same power dynamics won't be recreated with "smaller government" if large businesses are already so powerful they can influence governments. It sounds like you're arguing the problem isn't the amount of power being centralised but who gets to control it and your solution is to replace any semblance of equal democratic control with unevenly distributed capital. So in other words, feudalism with extra steps, but instead of the divine right of kings we have a supposed meritocracy built on generational wealth.

Now, I'm with you that representative systems are undemocratic and centralised power leads to corruption and is a bad idea. Where we apparently differ is that my answer would also dissolve corporations by eliminating the concept of private property and use the minimalist government structures to provide social services and infrastructure rather than to protect private property.

[verisimi]

One thing at a time! I don't even think that most people are even on board with the idea that big government might not be the answer to all of our problems - most people like the way government is acting!

Things that I think should be mandatory is a lot more freedom of information. I'm absolutely not a fan of gatekeepers of information (eg the media) nor of any policies to manage 'misinformation'. At the present we don't even know what we don't know..

Given government is purportedly working for us, surely it should be the case that the info that is collected and gathered should be freely available to all of us, that would be great start. Eg with the covid info, why is this not available in real time to us all? What information does the government use to base their decisions on?

I think it is a small and simple step to take (provide information immediately) so we can see wtf is even going on. Let's also stop this 'misinformation' mud slinging, but level ourselves up to try to make sense of whatever info there is.

Re the point about private property. I love the way indigenous American tribes did not even have that concept. But, if we were to implement that, all that would happen is that no one would care. I'm totally fine with people owning property that they use.

I would approach this problem differently. If I were king (and obv. I'm not!) I would make all ownership fully traceable back to the specific individuals. Because, in fact, individuals are all that matters! Corporations/Trusts/Offshore arrangement/etc are just bits of legal paper, concepts. If we knew who owned what, I suspect that this would illuminating. Again, this would be just an information gathering exercise. I'm sure there would be lots of issues with that! but again, in the first place, all I'd want to do is have the information.

In general, I'm most interested in a calculated rollback away from monolithic institutions towards the individual. The general direction of travel is entirely the opposite though - and accelerating!