CEO Morgan and libertarian principals v. Big Business

[Rusty Edge]

[Spit from In Which We Speak of Monetary Matters]

(  http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=1417.0  )

It did indeed. ( seem relevant to the topic of things financial )

So Morgan is a capitalist, rather than a libertarian?


Edited for coherence.

[Buster's Uncle]

...I suppose those are really the same thing, aren't they?  Santi is supposed to be the libertarian, but the gun-nut kind.  Morgan is the free market money-nut sort, I think...

[Rusty Edge]

Small businessmen and entrepreneurs often are libertarian and self-reliant.

Big businessmen are often in bed with big government, bending and rewriting the rules in a Haliburton kind of way to gain advantages. Contracts, loans,  tax-breaks, exemptions from regs, new roads, anything that helps them or hurts their competitors.

[Buster's Uncle]

Is it not libertarian when the big boys do that because they're not individuals, or because it's unprincipled w/o even philosophic basis?  Or both?

A libertarian doesn't necessarily have a problem with gaming the broken system, for all that they like to think of themselves as principled and often actually are...

[Rusty Edge]

I guess both.

I'm trying to say that big businessmen/ corporations aren't anti-gov and anti-reg as a matter of principal.

It's all about bottom line. IF taking away layers of gov takes away business, or free trade & de-regulation helps their competitors more than them, they are against it.


Although I would readily argue that a corp is not a person. It can't vote, it doesn't count as a person in a census, it can't go to prison, or be executed. They are owned, even though slavery has been abolished.

Therefore, it doesn't have the same rights as a person. It shouldn't have free speech in an election. It should be subject to libel, instead. It doesn't have a conscience or religion, so it can't claim religious exemption from healthcare regs. 

I think corps are good things. People should be able to invest in a business with limited liability. But you can't have it both ways. You shouldn't be able to form a corporation to slander somebody anonymously in an election. You shouldn't be able to turn your business into a corp to protect your personal assets, and claim religious grounds for not following healthcare laws, or discriminating against gays, or whatever in your business practices.

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Uh, short of a True Scotsman argument, I can't dispute the last statement. It happens.

[Buster's Uncle]

True Scotsman argument?  Which last statement?

You hit on the concept that I think is key in the profoundly wrong legal principal of corporate personhood.  A corporation can't spend the night in jail for drunk and disorderly, or do prison time for lying or fraud or theft or murder - all but the first being things corporations do all the time.  They can't be punished like I can, and to pretend they have, or should, the same rights is an outrage against fundamental American egalitarian foundational principals.  They don't even get shut down much, because Teddy Roosevelt is dead and Obama is no socialist.

This is hate-Bossmen and Robber Barons stuff that brings out my most stridently left politics, you know...

[Rusty Edge]

A libertarian doesn't necessarily have a problem with gaming the broken system, for all that they like to think of themselves as principled and often actually are...

Yeah, it happens. A true Scotsman/idealistic libertarian might refuse participating on principal, but probably most would game the broken system in hopes of bringing it down, or getting payback.

[Buster's Uncle]

Just making sure.

I think even a very principled libertarian could game the system for every cent possible on the grounds that stupidity being punished for being stupid is the right and natural order - and it's their libertarian duty to maximize their individual interests as part of that order.

You're fun to talk to about this stuff.

[Rusty Edge]

I think even a very principled libertarian could game the system for every cent possible on the grounds that stupidity being punished for being stupid is the right and natural order - and it's their libertarian duty to maximize their individual interests as part of that order.

While conveniently forgetting that the state punishes it's citizens for it's own stupidity in the form of increased coercive taxation?

The fundamental principle of libertarianism is non-aggression. This should apply to neighbors as well as future generations, because taking from the government is taking from them.

You're fun, too, Buncle. And you're right.

Uh..... this is an important thread. Hijacking might dilute useful information and prevent somebody from finding and benefiting from it.

[Buster's Uncle]

Okydoke; you're right.  At what post shall I spilt this off to its own thread?  Where you asked about Morgan?  Where I posted the Morgan link?  I that's all the two of us since so far, so simple.

[Rusty Edge]

Where I asked about Morgan.

Morgan himself was on topic.

[Buster's Uncle]

One minute, and done.

[Yitzi]

True Scotsman argument?  Which last statement?

You hit on the concept that I think is key in the profoundly wrong legal principal of corporate personhood.  A corporation can't spend the night in jail for drunk and disorderly, or do prison time for lying or fraud or theft or murder - all but the first being things corporations do all the time.  They can't be punished like I can, and to pretend they have, or should, the same rights is an outrage against fundamental American egalitarian foundational principals.  They don't even get shut down much, because Teddy Roosevelt is dead and Obama is no socialist.

This is hate-Bossmen and Robber Barons stuff that brings out my most stridently left politics, you know...

Someone needs to find  ...

[Buster's Uncle]

I must have split the thread out from under you while you were posting, Yitzi.  Pardon me sending it over there.

[Buster's Uncle]

Someone needs to find  ...

I do not resent the comparison.

Bossmen suck.  They want to make slaves of us all.