CEO Morgan and libertarian principals v. Big Business

[Trenacker]

While I'm sure that Morgan's big talk would appeal to self-described libertarians who believe(d) that government regulation was the major cause of the collapse of civilization on Earth, it's not clear to me that a society founded on his principles would do other than descend into oligarchy at best, monopoly at worst. While I have no doubt that Morgan was self-made, it seems clear to me that part of his success was courting and becoming syncretic with, not avoiding, government.

Many large companies favor governments more activist than libertarians are wont to see. Large companies may have strategic reasons for seeking regulation (to cost new competition out of the market, for example). They may favor a tax-and-spend model of government in cases where the tax code shifts the burden away from the upper classes but succeeds in generating opportunities for contracting.

Libertarians often have an air of self-sufficiency. Morgan's push-button, over-indulged society is apt to become anything but. At some point, the Morganites will evolve from entrepreneurs to epicures. At that point, they may decide to opt for company rule under circumstances in which they are guaranteed a livelihood and a certain degree of comforts in return for their labor.

I envision that Morgan's natural tendency would be to drift toward a situation in which concentrations of inherited wealth produce an oligarchy that presides over a vast workers' dystopia policed by mercenary armies. It sounds about the way Morgan Industries operated on Earth, if the official fiction is any indication.

[Buster's Uncle]

Now right here's a thing that's always bothered me a bit - The Free Drones.  I was surprised when I got into the online community and saw a general consensus that the Drones were a splinter of The Hive, not the Morganites.  I was disappointed when I realized that it was easy to miss, but explicit, that they were indeed a Hine splinter (for example, in some bits on the Domai page of the official SMACX site that we now host).

For all that it makes some sense to have communist roots for the labor faction - but people, what is the cause of communism?  It is not Marx or Lenin or Chairman Yang - it's working for robber baron Bossmen like Morgan.  I've worked in factories and I've been a kind of migrant labor, and trust me, I know.

[Rusty Edge]

I suspect that a Libertopian government would be the last one to develop space travel. It takes a lot of diverse research, considerable resources and organization that would be considered unjustifiable for an austere government, and unprofitable for a business.

It's too easy to look at an idea that's never been done before, and say that proves it's unnecessary. To look at the expenditures, and say there are more worthy priorities.

Nobody ever says that if we could solve the medical monitoring problems necessary for space travel we could change healthcare forever, or shrink a computer's size and weight to fit in a satellite or capsule, figure out how to track and communicate with it, develop the new materials to make it possible, figure out how to turn solar energy into electricity, etc. etc. that we could change everybody's lives for the better forever, and create new industries and prosperity in the process!

[Buster's Uncle]

There it is.

Libertarianism has exactly the same basic flaw as communism, for all that libertarians hate communism so - both make sense on paper, but require a better brand of people than we actually have to work with.

[Rusty Edge]

I've concluded that the practical limit for it is the size of a small town.

If the circle is small enough that everybody knows you, and one has to live with their reputation for the rest of their life, it works.

Or if all of the people take their religion as seriously as their politics, they'll probably do right by each other.

[Elok]

Has anybody quoted Ambrose Bierce's definition of corporation yet in this thread?  The bit about pursuing individual profit without individual responsibility?

I don't think Yang is so much a commie as a general authoritarian.  He has a strong incentive to run planned, but at heart he's more about control than any economic policy.  Domai would be the "communist," I suppose, though I've never played SMAX.

EDIT: Morgan is by definition not libertarian, as he is both the head of his enormous corporation and a head of state, and we're not shown any divisions between the two.  He can't run planned, but that just means his unholy fusion of big money and big government is more flexible than most.  Actually, it's an idea that hasn't been tried on Earth; I wonder what would happen, if the government treated itself like a corporation?  I suppose it depends on how the SE table was set up . . .

(not a libertarian or communist, for the record)

[Elok]

I mean, it's ridiculous and weird, but also kind of awesome, to imagine the Quality Assurance Minister getting voted out of office for allowing too many stale bags of Fritos to hit the shelves on his watch.

[Buster's Uncle]

Strained Relations - The Morganite Succession -Here, Ali dealt a little with how power struggles in an oligarchy structured along corporate lines might go.  (See if you recognize the leaderhead.)

Yang is -- Yang.  There's a thing about him very like Miriam where the leaderhead and the obvious things about the faction tell a very direct and simple story - but listening to the tech quotes and secret project movies, you hear a much more nuanced and complex personality.  Miriam is a deep thinker, unlike one might expect; a techno-ethicist concerned with the impact and cost of new techs, definitely not a simple luddite.  Yang is still as callous as you'd expect, but deeply concerned with self improvement, with being the best Yang, above suffering.

Elok, perhaps you'll recall catching me framing Yang's ideas in pseudo-Chinese terms disguising refried Nietzsche.  Take that as read here.  The Superior Man is above concepts like mercy...

[Geo]

I mean, it's ridiculous and weird, but also kind of awesome, to imagine the Quality Assurance Minister getting voted out of office for allowing too many stale bags of Fritos to hit the shelves on his watch.

Voted out of what? And by who? The Ministers of Board? Directors of Government? I always imagine Morgan running Police State to have the best return for his investments.

[Elok]

I think of it as a more or less logical but deeply unhealthy extension of the welfare state.  George Washington's cabinet had four departments: war, justice, state and treasury.  The primary concern of the federal government was to prevent violence by outside (war, state) and inside (justice) parties.  Treasury existing largely to fund the other three.  Now there's a branch of the government for practically every aspect of life, and the business of the state is to ensure our well-being as never before.  Suppose we go a little bit further in the same general direction, and the government is responsible not only for ensuring that our food is safe, but that it is tasty and attractively packaged and properly marketed.  Heck, just get the government involved in making the food itself.

The end result would be a kind of less-dogmatic communism.  No quotas or central planning down to the last stalk of wheat.  The public is a customer, and the state is open for business.  The federal government exists to manage state and local franchises and ensure consistent quality.  Possibly there can be overlapping franchises at the local level to ensure proper competition.  That's the only way I can see "free market" coexisting with a government run by a corporation.

I am not at all opposed to the welfare state, but our society is increasingly infantile--something like a third of Americans remain living with their parents into their thirties now--and I can see this trend continuing.  I wouldn't predict it happening as such, but I wouldn't rule it out entirely, either.

[Yitzi]

While I'm sure that Morgan's big talk would appeal to self-described libertarians who believe(d) that government regulation was the major cause of the collapse of civilization on Earth, it's not clear to me that a society founded on his principles would do other than descend into oligarchy at best, monopoly at worst. While I have no doubt that Morgan was self-made, it seems clear to me that part of his success was courting and becoming syncretic with, not avoiding, government.

Many large companies favor governments more activist than libertarians are wont to see. Large companies may have strategic reasons for seeking regulation (to cost new competition out of the market, for example). They may favor a tax-and-spend model of government in cases where the tax code shifts the burden away from the upper classes but succeeds in generating opportunities for contracting.

Libertarians often have an air of self-sufficiency. Morgan's push-button, over-indulged society is apt to become anything but. At some point, the Morganites will evolve from entrepreneurs to epicures. At that point, they may decide to opt for company rule under circumstances in which they are guaranteed a livelihood and a certain degree of comforts in return for their labor.

I envision that Morgan's natural tendency would be to drift toward a situation in which concentrations of inherited wealth produce an oligarchy that presides over a vast workers' dystopia policed by mercenary armies. It sounds about the way Morgan Industries operated on Earth, if the official fiction is any indication.

I think you're half right.  He's not libertarian in the normal sense, as he does favor government involvement in terms of regulations to ensure a fair playing field and so on (which precludes some monopolies and vast concentrations of inherited wealth).  He would not, however, favor government involvement to achieve non-economic goals.

I see Morgan's ideal society as one where the gap between rich and poor is wide, but relatively easy to traverse.  Socioeconomic mobility, but not equality.

Now right here's a thing that's always bothered me a bit - The Free Drones.  I was surprised when I got into the online community and saw a general consensus that the Drones were a splinter of The Hive, not the Morganites.  I was disappointed when I realized that it was easy to miss, but explicit, that they were indeed a Hine splinter (for example, in some bits on the Domai page of the official SMACX site that we now host).

For all that it makes some sense to have communist roots for the labor faction - but people, what is the cause of communism?  It is not Marx or Lenin or Chairman Yang - it's working for robber baron Bossmen like Morgan.  I've worked in factories and I've been a kind of migrant labor, and trust me, I know.

The thing is...if you've got the organizational skill to pull off  a , you can probably do well in  .  It may very well be that a true communist revolution is impossible under  , because he gets all the people capable of doing it to benefit from the system.  Every time there was an actual communist revolution, it was from an aristocratic feudal system (whose flaws are most similar to those of  , though his are a lot stronger), not a capitalist one.

I mean, it's ridiculous and weird, but also kind of awesome, to imagine the Quality Assurance Minister getting voted out of office for allowing too many stale bags of Fritos to hit the shelves on his watch.

Voted out of what? And by who? The Ministers of Board? Directors of Government? I always imagine Morgan running Police State to have the best return for his investments.

"By who" would probably depend on political SE.  Under Frontier or Police State or likely Fundamentalism, what Morgan says, goes (with the three differing in how it's enforced).  Under Democracy (which Morgan usually runs), most likely you get a vote in proportion to your share in Morgan Industries.

[Buster's Uncle]

Has anybody quoted Ambrose Bierce's definition of corporation yet in this thread?  The bit about pursuing individual profit without individual responsibility?

Please do.


Yitzi, I think you'll agree that Morgan would see his system as the most direct possible of meritocracies, yes?

[Buster's Uncle]

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.

How fundamental really, though?  It OUGHT to be that way, yes.  A libertarian system could only work at all through some very cleverly-maintained social pressures and mores(is that how you spell that?), but do you really buy that all the guns are about self-defense from the parasites and predators?  Really?

I think they certainly do believe that, but that it's wishful thinking.  I've know a few genuine libertarians and read a LOT of Heinlein fiction, and I'm pretty sure that the average serious libertarian is, in his heart, not much more than a survivalist who can read - and imagines the world going Mad Max, with him as one of the warlords because he was prepared...

[Rusty Edge]

I'm really tired from dealing with family medical stuff these last few days. I skimmed the recent activity, but I don't really understand the discussion because I don't play this game.

1) I always thought that the former Soviet Union was the largest corporation in history. Granted, it was too diversified and inefficient, but utilities can get away with that for a while because they have a monopoly.   Don't believe me? Think of the Central Committee/Politburo as a high-handed panel of chief execs/ board of directors, who care nothing for the little shareholders/citizens.

2) I think the survivalists are often isolationists and racists first, and the libertarian politics are an afterthought. I had a sales call at the home of some survivalists once.  They were serious enough to have horses. They had a lot of loose ammunition laying around the kitchen, big stuff, for feeding machine guns, iirc. Their rottweilers were
named....

Hitler  and Uzi .

I suspect they could have been comfortable with a fascist government, but I never asked them.

---------------------------------------------
So much for Real Life.

I've had mostly virtual contact with self-described libertarians. I find their views to be more internally consistent than people of  other political philosophies. In fact I'd rather describe myself as one than be called a Republican.  But it's only a dream. I don't think they could run a single state. Maybe the free state project will work, and I can gladly admit I was wrong, but I'm not holding my breath.

Where was I?  I was going to skip over the internal logic of non-aggression, and address the guns.

I think the guns come from some things like -"power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely", "those who would trade freedom for security will have neither", "beware the military-industrial complex" and various founding father statements with regard to the dangers of standing armies, banking establishments, political parties and paper currency.

I think that the militarization of police departments only winds them up more.

Me, I don't harbor illusions of survival. Now that we're over 50, my wife and I depend upon the medical establishment to manufacture pills. If that infrastructure & distribution system collapses, it starts the countdown clock. It's a no win even if I know how to hunt, fish, and farm, etc.  with colonial technology.


I was going to say something else about people and power and governments.

Like I said, I'm really tired.

[Buster's Uncle]

I'mm --- sympathetic to the libertarian world-view.  What nerd isn't?  I've just observed a few in depth back in collage and seen a lot of that sort of talk -and again, read a lot of Heinlein- and I just don't see it working, alas.  There's a lot of thinking there that deeply appeals to me, but I don't buy it.