[pembrook]

You’re fundamentally worried about the wrong thing.

It’s an extremely common bias on the left just as the anti-government bias on the right.

Both public and private entities are capable of abusing power.

Only one group however is legally entitled to take 50% of your money regardless of the quality of their product, by holding a gun to your head. They can even take more via the phantom tax of inflation using deficit spending (as is happening now all over Europe). This group is the one you should fear more if looking at it from first principles.

The current runaway deficits across Europe and rising political unrest prove this.

The only thing companies can do to “take” your money is offer you a service that’s better than all alternatives that you chose to buy voluntarily.

If you think that’s the bigger authoritarian risk something is wrong with your mental model of how the world works.

[Lutger]

I have a different mental model because I live in a high trust society. Well, at least higher than the US. In my model, the government is basically a virtual contract between all people to take care of each other. One side of the bargain is tax and following the law, the other is what you should get out of it: protection against criminals (police) and hostile countries (defense), universal healthcare, education, roads and stuff, consumer rights, the rule of law, etc.

I think that is a pretty good deal and I see no inherent reason for why 'the gov is out there to steal from us' (makes no sense), because it basically IS us. Corps on the other hand, they are explicitly there to get your money.

So in my model the only reason the government is bad is because it is influenced by corporations (and because people vote for rightwing parties), and the only reason corporations are good is because the government makes them so. This is a bit black and white to make it very explicit, but basically that is the idea.

And there are some flaws here of course and a lot of nuances, but I don't think this is wrong or biased at all. In fact, I think everybody else is wrong or biased and am ready to argue why, but that should come at no surprise.

[pembrook]

I appreciate you articulating your views wholly. I also live in a high trust society (Finland).

I would categorize your position as the textbook left-leaning bias (Government good, corporation bad), and fundamentally incorrect. But NOT because I'm on the opposite side.

I believe the only rational position to take is the center (ie. "things are complicated" and "incentives rule all").

There are huge holes in your logic:

1) The default state of humanity is not utopian prosperity. The default state is starving naked in the dirt. So where does the tax money the collective uses to "take care of each other" come from? Why are only the rich countries providing good benefits...and how did they get rich in the first place?

2) If one is being honest in their analysis, enterprises competing to create surplus value is the only reason your government is able to get the tax revenue to provide you with anything. Otherwise you're just redistributing dirt among naked people.

3) You've ignored the existence of incentives. Your view rests on the fallacy humans in government are a different species than the humans in private companies and will act more selflessly. This is provably false. 99.99% of government workers have zero exposure to the accountability of elections, have no competitive pressures, no fear of losing their job, and thus do not make things better or innovate. People in private companies on the other hand have all those incentives.

4) Historically, whenever we give a society over wholly to government, it has resulted in disaster and human tragedy on a mass scale every single time. If government is fundamentally good, why aren't wholly government-driven societies better? How come when China privatized and reduced its percentage of government driven economy from 90% to 30% (where they sit today), it made everyone more prosperous by a factor of 100x?

5) Current trendlines all indicate the "High trust European socialism" model is in slow collapse across Europe. Like the USSR (you could call it USSR-light given EU average has now reached 55% government driven economy), they stopped innovating and are losing the private industry surplus to tax and redistribute. Germany, UK, France, Finland (my country) etc. are all in deep shit right now.

6) Cooperatives are legal in basically all developed countries. If the collectivist model drove more value for people, how come cooperatives don't dominate all sectors of the economy?