FUN FACT: Since 1974, the libertarian party has received the majority of the electoral votes in a presidential election just as often as the democrat party has. With the so-called liberal party imploding, there might be room for a party that's actually liberal in the traditional sense to enter the scene....

luv the arrogance hawk. except your wrong as usual.

FUN FACT: American Hawk gets paid by the post, not the relevancy of said post to the topic!!!

The libertarian party lacks relevance because real libertarians have joined the Republican Party and are now voting Republican. Libertarians believe in cutting taxes and spending. Libertarians are also against liberal judicial activists and support states rights. Libertarians also believe in protecting the life of the unborn. And libertarians also believe we should do everything possible to spread our liberties to the Arab and Muslim world. These are the same things the Republican Party believes in. That's why the libertarian party is now irrelevent.

And libertarians also believe we should do everything possible to spread our liberties to the Arab and Muslim world.

YEAH. You'll take our liberties and damn-well LIKE 'em, ragheads.

Such an enlightened policy.

The Prairie Angel

Sadly, Doherty believes that even with this new, more practical manifesto, it's "doubtful" that the LP can break the 50% barrier in American politics.

I think it is doubtful that the LP can break the 0.5% barrier in American politics.

You really have to believe those guys are paid.

Before anyone gets too smug about the silly libertarians, let's talk about the Green Party.

Why are libertarians taken seriously? You can't implement their platform and even HAVE a country. They are ideology running wild (and foolish).

I wonder what percentage of Libertarians are atheists?

I would guess more than the general population because anti-athoritary sort of goes with atheisms.

But I would also guess they mainly are not "rational atheists" (those who reject religion because it is internally incoherent), because they don't turn their rational powers on Libertarianism itself.

Why are libertarians taken seriously?

Why are evangelists taken seirously?

Why are Rush, Savage, Coulter and Hannity taken seriously?

Strange indeed.

Exactly. The Green Party has completely blown their credibility by insisting global warming really is happening, that we need to convert to solar, and that voting for Joe Lieberman is about the same as voting for Bush.

Time to tell the Greens just where they can put their tired old party.

Yeah, we need to blow right past the libertarian platform and implement John Lennon's Imagine platform.

Hey, now I get it! It's fun to talk crazy!

Eliminate the postal service. Holy shit these people are nuts.

Almost everything Al posted about libertarians is a lie. And the things he says that are correct have nothing to do with the rethugs. He really doesn't even try anymore.

These guys have earned a slur term.

Wingnuts is taken.
Repug is taken.
Troll is taken.
American Hawk is taken.

Anybody logolepts out there?
Any verbivores?

How about running a contest for the best slur term for liberfairyians?

Nut: You can't take them seriously, they are entertainers. I take Dave Chappelle, Tater Salad and Art Bell more seriously.

But seriously, what is the world coming to if the Libertarians are wetting their collective fingers to see which way the polictical winds are blowing.

"...Libertarians also believe in protecting the life of the unborn..."
(Al on July 8, 2006 at 1:27 PM)

"I wonder what percentage of Libertarians are atheists?"
(MonkeyBoy on July 8, 2006 at 1:58 PM)

Reason Magazine was founded by supporters of Ayn Rand. Certainly Rand isn't the only source of libertarian "philosophy", but she was pro-choice and atheist to the point of obnoxious.

I don't usually respond to Al because he's such a personality-free bot that it's just not as ... fun as rebutting Jay or the ever-popular rdw.

But I have to make an exception here. Al wouldn't know what a Libertarian was if the ghost of Ayn Rand performed the lead in his erotic fantasies.

Hey Al -- ever read anything out of The Cato Institute on the neocons? Libertarians are isolationists in the Robert Taft tradition. They don't believe in using our military as the world's policeman.

And they consider democracy-building in the mideast the very worst form of big-government statism -- for the benefit of foreigners on top of it all. And they'd projectile vomit at the hypocrisy of doing this in the name of "liberty" and "freedom."
Secondly, Libertarians value the rights of an actual woman over the rights of a potential human being. No contest there -- Libertarians do *not* want the government in people's bedrooms.

Libertarians are also split on religion. Some of them are pretty fervent believers, because they believe that the behavior regulation they reject from the government must come from within. Many other libs -- perhaps most -- are atheist, agnostic or so weakly religious that it doesn't much matter.

Even strongly religious Libs don't tend to be Old Testament theocrat types, though.

They're Libertarians to begin with because they have an aversion to authority.

Bob

The 2004 platform was so radical that finding the nuggets of "not radical" was what made it so interesting.

On abortion is recognized that it was a contentious issue, and left it at that.

It also included language about market regulation, which they called consumer fraud prevention. To me it was fascinating that they could want to do away with paper money, privatize everything but the judiciary, end criminalization of drugs, and still believe that markets need regulation to protect consumers.

I also recall that they didn't advocate open borders, the other area in which they didn't take the radical position.

So of course the platform was unrealistic, but it was also a great example of radicalism brushing up against realism. It definitely deserved points for integrity.

You can't implement their platform and even HAVE a country.

No, but you can have a mining town, or some kind of frontier West type of society, which seems to be where most hardcore libertarians I've known would like to be (because their extraordinary talents & judgment would make them standouts in that kind of meritocracy, see). Urban libertarians are usually just kinda wankerish.

I would have stuck with the anarcho-Rothbardian position. I'm pretty sure they have the best historical track record.

A lack of data allows some to argue that Medieval Iceland had such a system. It supposedly did OK until a few wealthy families started gaming the system and then vikings with a more organized government in Norway kicked their ass.

Somalia, 1991-2005 might be a better example to the anarcho-Rothbardian utopia. That is until they were sadly defeated by the islamists.

I think it's worth a try. We just have to stock up on ammo and hope no organized governments take advantage of our experiment. The system is decidedly metastable in the presence of aristocracies, autocracies, democracy, despotisms, dictatorships, facists, monarchies, oligarchies, theocracies, and tyrannies. If we look back at the joys of life in somalia over the last decade, the rewards are clearly worth the risk.

The Greens lost all credibility in my book by insisting that Al Gore was exactly like W. Bush. I hope they are all boycotting "An Inconvenient Truth" because it's by Al "Bush-lite" Gore. Also, there seemed to be a preponderance of Greens supporting the much more conservative Howard Dean in '04 despite Kerry being the more "progressive" of the two candidates--by far.

Also, just like the Libertarians, I don't think Greens would know how to actually govern. Both are irrelevant parties who would screw up the country. (Incidentally, I think the Greens managed to do that in '00 without even having to to govern.)

OK, I think this Hawk and Al are satirists. Few serious people could be that amusing. Keep it up gals/guys!

They are ideology running wild (and foolish).

The A to Z of their idealogy is "I don't wanna, you can't make me, go 'way leave me alone! Waaaaaah!"

In other words, they don't have one. A little dash of Libertarianism is good for you, kinda like having an appetite is good for you, likewise a taste for the occaisional beer. But a Gluttons and Tosspots Party? Well, that's kinda what the LP is, you ax me...

latts:

The archetypical literary example naturally being Galt's Gulch from Atlas Shrugged.

Saam:

That's really fascinating that they'd be hung up on abortion rights. Apparently I was wrong, and the Libs as a party do have a religious side. Either that or some of them are like Nat Hentoff, and argue against abortion purely on the grounds of defending the liberties of unborn life.

Which, frankly, strikes me as an irreducibly religious position. You have to believe a fetus is a human life to begin with -- and that's been impossible to concretely define in a scientific sense.

Libs do believe that a legit role of government is the prevention of force and fraud, so "consumer protection" legislation doesn't surprise me all that much. I'd think it would involve an enhanced ability to sue a big company rather than regulation through a gummit agency, though. Libs love the courts. They think that the answer to pollution problems is with lawuits.

"Open borders" is kind of a canard, though. I don't think even the most ardent free trader supports those. You can't be consistently isolationist in foreign policy without, well, *isolating* the country. Whether or not they support the draconian and mean-spirited elements in the Tancredo legislation is a different question, though. I think they'd probably go for a comprensive approach that deals with illegals here currently rather than an "enforcement first" approach -- but I may be wrong here as well.

As for philosophical integrity? I dunno ... probably moreso than the two main parties, who have much bigger coalitions to deal with. But not much genuine concessions with "reality," either.

I guess no truck with reality *would* count as philosophical integrity, though.

Which is probably why most people consider philosophers bullshit artists :(

Bob

I actually know a couple of real Libertarians, as opposed to the fake-ass kind that comes around here. The ones I know are intensely pragmatic (as well as having fantastic senses of humor, which makes them fun to hang around with) and so they are willing to compromise in the hope of getting at least some of what they want. They laugh their patooties off at the party platform.

lawuits = lawsuits

And I ended too many fucking sentences with "though," though.

I hate bad writing never more vigorously than when it's my own.

Bob

Well, Al was certainly being honest when he said Republitarians believe in "cutting taxes and spending"... as long as those are two separate phrases, rather than "cutting taxes and cutting spending."

shortstop:

That's interesting. I've conversed with those types as well (and have worked with a few college-age Libs of the Heinlein-infatuated type) -- but why would someone self-identify with a fringe party without feeling comfortable with the platform?

I think "Libertarian" for certain people carries connotations of being above the huddled masses, thinking for oneself, finding external behavior controls demeaning because they so obviously don't need them in their own lives, etc.

I'd wonder if this is something a little different than a concrete political affiliation.

Bob

Hobs:

"cutting taxes and spending." Yeah, like drunken fucken sailors :)

ROTFL ! Nice catch.

Bob

GQ: Also, just like the Libertarians, I don't think Greens would know how to actually govern. Both are irrelevant parties who would screw up the country.

mr. jayarbee: You're being too hard on both of those groups. There is no possibility that even a Tupperware party could have screwed up the country as badly as have the Republicans.

Spoken exactly like an out-of-touch Rubbermaid user who's never been through a real Tupperware party brawl. My god, the stories, if I could bear to tell them.

One advantage of having identified myself as a Libertarian is that I'm not on the standard mailing lists nor on the standard phone lists. Peaceful silence and an unclogged mailbox...ahh.

And yeah, most people who call themselves Libertarians are bat-shit crazy. Ayn Rand cultists. Most of them male, most of them with absolutely no sense of history or reality.

Heck, if the axioms of Libertarianism actually held true, Bagdad should be a paradise: no gun control, no government, no taxation, no regulation. Everything "self-organized" up the wazoo. So why is it such a mess?

SHORTSTOP: Spoken exactly like an out-of-touch Rubbermaid user who's never been through a real Tupperware party brawl. My god, the stories, if I could bear to tell them.

mjrb: Women brawling? Got pictures?

How many times do I have to tell you mine is a pay site? And who said they were all women?

I'm a former Libertarian (I even attended Ayn Rand's funeral)turned sort of moderate liberal / libertarian / Unitarian Universalist. If anyone really cares, here's a little perspective on why some people, myself included, viewed the Libertarian Party as something of a moderate option.

One way to view a libertarian is as having a GOP economic philosophy with a Democrat social philosophy, which means the more pro-freedom part of each party's ideology. In that sense, libertarians are 'pro choice' on everything. If it's correct for people to be able to choose what to do with their own bodies on issues like abortion or drug use, they should be free to choose how to spend their money. That's the theory.

If you follow that line of thinking to it's logical conclusion, you end up with private schools, private roads, private money, private everything - including police and fire services. Then you get into endless debates about whether there should be competing police and how you pay for everything. That's where libertarians start to get into heated arguements among themselves.

And - it's all very logical and rational, once you accept a few premises and can ignore reality a little bit. Someone said there's no ideology there, but from my experience there's way too much ideology.

SHORTSTOP: How many times do I have to tell you mine is a pay site? And who said they were all women?

tkz:

Because Iraqis aren't members of DKE, let alone haven't attended Dartmouth College.

:)

Bob

mjrb: Not paying unless they are.

Heh. I figured that would cool you off pronto.

Stranahan: Wow, a moderate liberal UU who uses "Democrat" as an adjective. That's a new one.

SHORTSTOP: I figured that would cool you off pronto.

Stranahan:

The reason Libertarianism doesn't parse for me even on a purely theoretical level (it's easy to admire the "philosophical consistency" of a raving lunatic -- the Unibomber Manifesto is certainly a crystalline intellectual exemplar of *something*) is that it recognizes no distinction between public and private spheres.

In order for this to parse, you have to be such an extreme individualist that you can't cognize *anything* outside of your own personal POV. You visualize all problems by first asking the question "how would I relate to this?"

It may be "philosophically inconsistent" in comparison to a few fixed ideological premises, but it makes absolute sense to me to be an ardent civil libertarian while supporting strong government regulation of large economic entities.

The guiding premise there is John Stuart Mill's "my rights end at the beginning of your nose."

Bob

shortstop:

That's eminiently forgivable because Stranahan was speaking of Democratic philosophy and there's a cogent reason to avoid confusion with small-d democratic philosophy.

Democrat Party is the genuine slur.

Bob

Yeah. I'll stick with the rubbermaids.

Suit yourself, Master B.

SHORTSTOP: Suit yourself, Master B.

Bob,

I agree with your point - the libertarian view really doesn't recognize a distinction between private and public. It's the reverse of a totalitarian view which sees everything as 'public' with no concept of 'private'. It's treated a semantic distinction, because you can imagine anything 'public' currently to be 'private' in a utopian libertarian world. That's why I say - too much ideology.

One of my personal reasons for changing my views is that I think multi-national corporations are a real force, especially when they get tied up goverment...as they always seem to. The (in my opinion) naive opinion that a lot of libertarians take is that businesses / corporations really WANT free markets, when I think they only want free markets when it suits their company.

jayarbee: Are you the full-time shortstop on your team, or just a sub?

Do I have to answer that?

Stranahan: I think multi-national corporations are a real force, especially when they get tied up goverment...as they always seem to. The (in my opinion) naive opinion that a lot of libertarians take is that businesses / corporations really WANT free markets, when I think they only want free markets when it suits their company.

Excellent point.

SHORTSTOP: Do I have to answer that?

Stranahan:

Ahhh, but corporations, you see, are legal "persons" and thus also a type of individual.

I do think this may be a large part of the Libertarian stumbling block, which is essentially what you're saying as well.

On this, I do think Marx was right. Captalism, left to its own devices, tends to monopoly.

It's hard to understand why Libs, who fetishize "free enterprise" so much, can't make the same connection that Teddy Roosevelt did when he fought for the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Bob

I'd wonder if this is something a little different than a concrete political affiliation.

Absolutely. Libertarianism for a lot of people is more of a broad set of sympathies than a concrete political ideology. For instance, Jim Henley's blog (Unqualified Offerings) has had some interesting discussions about what it means to be a Democrat-leaning small-l libertarian. In such cases it's really an overall suspicion and skepticism of government power, but without the reflexive anarcho-capitalist sentiments. This roughly describes my political views; I think less government is better and the current one is too large, but I'm enough of a realist to accept that some forms of big government (e.g. unemployment insurance, entities like the SEC) are unavoidable or even desirable. My views are also tempered by getting a shitload of money from the NIH.

My sense is that the hardcore Randians are a minority among those with libertarian sympathies. And if you read Reason magazine seriously (I do), they're best described as "contrarian" rather than ideological, and more focused on practical cases of big government gone wrong than on abstract issues like "taxation is slavery."

As far as the party, they're fucking nuts. I often vote for them anyway because I live in CA so it doesn't matter. At this point I don't vote for Republicans on principle. I only vote for a Democrat if I feel strongly that he/she will advance some principle I care deeply about. Russ Feingold, for instance, is probably the only potential major party candidate that I would consider donating money to or voting for in 2008. I disagree with him on most issues, but he more than any other politician recognizes the value of limits on government authority.

...the old LP platform included not just the stuff you'd expect (abolish Social Security, abolish the Postal Service, abolish Medicare), but also such things as an end to paper money and an end to all taxation.

That's why we call them Looneytarians.

How about running a contest for the best slur term for liberfairyians?

See above.

I hope the LP gubernatorial candidate who dyed himself blue with his homemade silver nitrate "medicine" gets to weigh in on health care.

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arachne-

YEAH. You'll take our liberties and damn-well LIKE 'em, ragheads.

Such an enlightened policy.

Much like Dems being "pro-choice"-- unless it involves: "school vouchers", Socialist InSecurity privatization, MediScare, 'public accomodations' on private property, taxation, Welfare, opposing the Drug War, etc. ...

I'm impressed...

Shorter Arachne-"You'll take our 'choices'-- and damn-well LIKE 'em, Americans."

Hey Bob, you say most people think most philosophers are bullshit artists?

If you haven't already, read that little book entitled "On Bullshit", by Harry Frankfurt, a philosopher. It's really funny.

Not to sidetrack this, but what is wrong with the word, "irrelevance", that people feel the need to add another syllable?

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tzs,
In response to your question:

Heck, if the axioms of Libertarianism actually held true, Bagdad should be a paradise: no gun control, no government, no taxation, no regulation. Everything "self-organized" up the wazoo. So why is it such a mess?

Somalia

Somalia became that way for local reasons originally. I think. Bush 41 reacted to the TV pictures of famine to stick Marines in there to try to stabalize it for famine releaf. That wasn't enough to stabilize it, and we had no end-game worth the cost of actually stabilizing the country. So we got out, leaving a cockpit of external forces which DID have some stake in the game to play it out. Each can prevent any effort to stabilize Somalia at low cost, so that stabilizing Somalia becomes too expensive for all opponents.

In Somalia you have Etheopia trying a little to get some control, as well as Islamicists and others all from the outside. The reason none has gotten control in 15 years is that the U.S. (among others) has provided covert funding to one or another of the warlords to keep any single group from getting control. The so-called Libertarian paradise is actually a carefully controlled stalemate.

The only thing that can break up the stalemate is if one of the outside forces can gain credibility with an internal "movement" that between them can dominate the area. The externally supported Islamists may have broken that barrier - and maybe not.

The other possibility is to have an invasion by a powerful external military. The U.S. and U.N. tried that in 1993 and found the cost too high for the return. They also now prevent any other nation from invading, leaving Somalia the world's paradise of anarchy.

Baghdad

Baghdad is almost exactly the same kind of stalemate of external forces being played out in someone else's backyard.

The amount of effort any external player will put into breaking the stalemate is a cost/benefit analysis. Does what you win there justify what it costs to you in other places. The U.S. could gain control of Baghdad in about one year by going onto a war footing and flooding the city with troops. It would cost the Republicans their control of the U.S. federal government, which is why we have never had the draft and mobilization that was required.

Without that level of total mobilization there are a lot of players who can exert enough force to frustrate the American efforts. The Sunnis are stretched to field the insurgency, but they can do it. The Iranians apply a minimum of effort to tie down a lot greater American effort and frustrate the American effort. They do this in part by supporting some Shiite factions. But the Shiites, as we know, are not unified.

The dynamic - the game of Risk

Anyone who has ever played a three-party game of cut-throat Risk will recognize the dynamic. The weaker parties will always gang up on the strongest to keep him from winning, until the previous strongest becomes the weakest, and the second most powerful will ally with the new weakest to keep from losing to the new strongest - we quit without a winner after 18 hours of playing. None of the three of us would accept ending that game as number two.

What a bunch of nonsensical gobbledygook! Why not have a "We Care about America First" political party? It's pretty obvious the two main political parties don't....

Randians, Rwandans, whatever.

These obsessive gedankenexperimente are better played out in massive multiplayer gaming environments than in real-world social contexts. (See related item on guys flunking out of college.)

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Why no mention of Ron Paul (R, TX 14) or his positions and voting record?

Nat:

That's certainly a respectable view, and I probably share much of it,
although doubtless I'm a bit more of a statist than thou. I'm so
pro-gun control that I harbor a secret fantasy of repealing the Second
Amendment, and I absolutely do believe that a single-payer healthcare
system is the only sensible alternative.

I also believe that American government has gotten a terribly
unjustified bad rap. Not that abuses don't happen, but be happen to
have the most streamlined and efficient federal government in the
entire world.

Your orientation sounds very similar to Frank Zappa's, another
small-government civil libertarian whose most "right wing" position
was a detestation of arts unions. The Libertarian Party dogged him
for years to run for president on their ticket. Frank was of course
flattered -- then he took a squint at their platform.

Which, like most intelligent people, he thought was batshit crazy.

Bob

i could never understand why a libertarian would run for public office. it's like an atheist wanting to be a priest.

libertarian as a personal philosophy i can see -- stay away from and out of organization or structure that can crush you. you don't need elections to start living a freer life.

i believe stranahan saw the light about big business, which can be as oppressive as big government. and why not mention big religion -- that is, the southern baptist and catholic churches? libertarian politicoes don't mention them, iirc. to me, that means they aren't serious.

One of my personal reasons for changing my views is that I think multi-national corporations are a real force, especially when they get tied up goverment...as they always seem to. The (in my opinion) naive opinion that a lot of libertarians take is that businesses / corporations really WANT free markets, when I think they only want free markets when it suits their company.

I second shortstop. Excellent point.

Libertarians tend to focus on government as the sole coercive force in society. They seem to brush by the fact that government is often the only check against private coercion.

MP3铃声

One of the few joys in following the miserable course of American politics these days is watching these libertarian clowns run around and spray each other with seltzer bottles.

And every day when I think of what morons would vote for Bush, I can take some solace in the fact that the American people are smart enough to relegate the Libertarians to their little crazy-parrot perch.

Libertarianism seems like a perfect political philosophy for those that are well off, white males with a future inheritence, middle-twenty, some college poli-sci, healthy people who don't know anybody poor or of color or disabled, etc.
For the rest of the country, not so much...

Ah, yes... The Presidential election of 1974 sure does bring back memories!

Stranahan: "One of my personal reasons for changing my views is that I think multi-national corporations are a real force, especially when they get tied up goverment...as they always seem to."

The corporation as an entity is a creation of government. Limited liability, legal status as an immortal artificial "person", a different set of rules for tax purposes...all are interventions by the State, and cannot exist in a true free market.

Failure on the part of the LP to realize this is why I'm a libertarian and not a Libertarian.

The (in my opinion) naive opinion that a lot of libertarians take is that businesses / corporations really WANT free markets, when I think they only want free markets when it suits their company.

That's not really true. Most libertarians understand that multi-nationals get their power from the government. Look at the lawsuits against P2P users from the RIAA. If the government wasn't complicit in allowing these suits, then there would be no problem. Same with Walmart forcing families to leave their homes in emminent domain takings. Or look at farm subsidies. By reducing government influence overall you weaken the ability of corporations to influence daily life.

The biggest blind-spot for Democrats is that they think that government is the solution to every problem. However, the more government is involved the more the rich and powerful, individuals and corporations, have an incentive to try to use government to put their competition out of business and get favorable market conditions. Quick, name me a Dem from an ag state that opposes farm subsidies? Look at the dollar amounts off Microsoft's lobbying efforts before and after the anti-trust suit. Once government got involved in their market, it was no longer in the interest to avoid using the government in their favor. Who do you think has the most pull with DC politicans, the rich and powerful or the poor and needy? Then how does giving more power to those that the rich have disproportionate pull on weaken corporations and the rich?

Large corporations never want free markets, unless they're innovative and able to create value. Free markets prevent companies from avoiding competition and must deal with them head on. In addition, they, on average, reduce profit margins for all but those with monopoly power.

Also, to say that all libertarians want to abolish the police and judicial system is extreme. Only the most extremist anarchists want to do that. If anything, most libertarians agree that the core function of government is the protection of the safety, security and freedoms of the individual.

Libertarianism seems like a perfect political philosophy for those that are well off, white males with a future inheritence, middle-twenty, some college poli-sci, healthy people who don't know anybody poor or of color or disabled, etc.
For the rest of the country, not so much...

Except for my age, that doesn't describe me at all. It does sound like Yearly Kos attendees, which even Markos admitted was "a little whiter, maybe with a bit more money than the typical [Democrat]."

Mo:

Conflating the power of large corporations with the power of government is both naive and blindly ideological.

Just because corporations have learned how to game the system and work government to their advantage isn't an argument against government per se.

It's an argument against an unrepresentative government. It's an argument for campaign finance and lobbying reform. It's an argument for more vigilant citizen participation in politics.

If corporations didn't hate the government they wouldn't spend so much money and effort trying to circumvent it.

Bob

Conflating the power of large corporations with the power of government is both naive and blindly ideological.

How is it blindly ideological? If anything the government has the power to arrest me and take away my rights and freedoms. Corporations don't. The only way they can is through government action.

Corporations haven't learned how to game the system, they've done it for centuries. Take a look back to the Dutch East Indies Corporation and take it forward. When corporations control a great deal of the purse strings, it doesn't matter how much you reform campaign finance.

It's an argument against an unrepresentative government. It's an argument for campaign finance and lobbying reform. It's an argument for more vigilant citizen participation in politics.

We have an representative government. Campaign finance and lobbying reform cause more problems than they solve* (and push money into dark corners and away from visibility). More vigilant citizen participation in politics is a pipe dream. The only way the average citizen will get involved is if the country or their lives go to hell in a handbasket.

* Did McCain-Feingold do anything about political advertising. All it did was shift it from campaigns to non-affiliated groups. If anything, I saw more ads after capaign finance reform than I ever did before.

This is good news because actually Carl Milsted's ideas are quite progressive. At least I find his general approach more reasonable than one has come to expect from Libertarians. In general, I would say he agrees with the aims of the Democrats, he just disagrees about methods. I wonder though, if he is wasting his time with the Libertarians. I think he should emigrate to Canada or Australia.-)

Mo:

Well, it's going to be rough responding to your post before I've drunk my first cuppa coffee. Gimme a minute until I jump-start my brain here.

First of all, your response to me is textbook ideology. You're not making arguments, you're presenting a-priori assertions only tangentially related to my post. And, I fear, you're even more off the deep end than Libertarianism, which at least recognizes the government's obligation to defend citizens against force and fraud. Because you throw corporations into the doghouse along with the government -- effectively conflating them into the same thing -- you're arguing anarchism. You make no distinctions whatsoever between types of agglomerated power. That's political metaphysics.

Let's address some of your points:

The government has the monopoly on force. That's a good thing. Because people tend to band together to defend their common interests, the alternative to that isn't (as Libertarians so love to argue) an armed and vigilant citizenry, but rather private militias. The government has the power to lock me up? Sure, but if it gets too arbitrary about it, we the people can put a stop to it. The Alien and Sedition Acts were thrown out. Habeas corpus was reestablished after the Civil War. Joe McCarthy was censured and left the senate a broken man. Nixon resigned in disgrace. And Bush's party is facing losses in the upcoming elections -- all because citzens have the power to check overreaching governmental power. Should this power be stronger? Hell, yes. But it's first and foremost up to us citizens to exercise it vigilantly. And we're a nation of couch potatoes.

Economic monopoly is the root of many evils, true. No self-respecting liberal in either the modern or historical sense would disagree with you there. Unchecked monopoly power is antithetical to both the public interest and free enterprise. But a fright reference to the Dutch East India Company? Sheesh, what about the Freemasons, the Illuminati, the Knights Templars? :) While there have always been connections the, toxic and dysfunctional confluence of government and corporate interests is a relatively recent phenomenon, beginning with Reagan appointing foxes to oversee the regulatory henhouses. Today, with Bush cronies running all the agencies and the K Street Project, it's completely out of control. But to deny the Sherman Antitrust Act, the post-'37 Supreme Court and its expansion of the interstate commerce clause, and the history of a host of regulatory agencies from the EPA to the SEC -- and vehement corporate opposition to them -- is to deny reality.

That they're becoming toothless now comments naught on the principle of government regulation in itself. It merely demonstrates that we need another political housecleaning to reinvigorate the only check the people have against untrammeled economic power.

I wasn't defending McCain/Feingold per se. Campaign finance is very tricky in practice, and people interested in power tend to innovate their way through the tiniest loopholes. But, as with government regulation, this comments naught on the saliency of campaign finance reform as a principle -- only reminds us of how difficult it is.

We won't have meaningful campaign finance reform until the SCOTUS overturns Buckley vs Valleo -- a hopelessly contradictory decision that both allows the right to regulate the size of individual campaign donations, but then goes on to equate money with political speech.

And money is not political speech. The Framers didn't intend the First Amendment to apply more to rich people than poor people. If you eagerly attack corporate power in the name of fairness, you're making an egalitarian argument (which brings you closer to anarchism than Libertarianism). You should at least be capable of consistently applying that principle to the cornerstone right in the Constitution.

Bob

Libertarianism is like salt. It's quite good in moderation. There's no way to base a civilized system of government upon it though. In its purest, radicalist form, it's pure wack.

Since 1974, the libertarian party has received the majority of the electoral votes in a presidential election just as often as the democrat party has.

The Democratic Part secured a majority of the electoral votes in Presidential elections in 1976, 1992, and 1996.

I must be missing the three times the Libertarian Party secured a majority of electoral votes.

That being said, American Hawk, while being wrong, touches, rather indirectly, on an error in Kevin's posts. American politics doesn't generally have a "50% barrier" it has, in many cases, a "more than any other candidate" barrier, which is often lower than 50% (and sometimes, as in Presidential elections, the counting is systematically distorted so that, even without fraud, you don't even need more than the best opponent so long as you get the right votes.)

Still, I think it'd be better if minor parties could be included without having to meet such a high barrier, even if they do come into government with crazy ideas (its hardly like major party politicians don't do that, too.)

Conflating the power of large corporations with the power of government is both naive and blindly ideological.

Corporations are creatures of government; the power of corporations is a part of the power of government.

That's a simple fact; recognizing it is neither "naive" nor "blindly ideological", though denying would seem to be at least one of those two.

gq wrote: The Greens lost all credibility in my book by insisting that Al Gore was exactly like W. Bush.

That was Ralph Nader, not The Greens. Yes, Nader ran on the Green Party ticket in 2000, but Nader was not then, has never been, and is not now, a Green or a member of The Green Party. And I agree with you -- despite the basic truth of what Nader has to say about the "permanent corporate government" that dominates the Federal government, the assertions you refer to that there was "no difference" between Gore and Bush destroyed Nader's credibility with me too.

In 2000, two reasons that Ralph Nader gave for his campaign were (1) to build the Green Party as a national grassroots-based progressive political force and (2) to pressure the Democratic Party to put forth progressive candidates and return to its progressive, populist values.

In 2004, just such a Democratic candidate ran for president: Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, whose platform was very similar to that of The Green Party. Nader did absolutely nothing to help Kucinich.

In 2004, Nader abandoned The Green Party and ran as an independent. He did not even seek its nomination for president, but instead asked the The Green Party to refrain from nominating its own candidate, and instead to "endorse" his camapaign -- a cynical move to gain ballot access in states where the Greens had hard-won permanent ballot access.

Fortunately The Green Party rejected Nader's bid and nominated a long-time Green Party activist, David Cobb, for President. Cobb made a point of not campaigning in close states, focusing his national compaign on states that were clearly already locked down by either Kerry or Bush, where he was not likely to affect the outcome of the presidential race, instead leveraging his national campaign to help state and local Green candidates.

And it is interesting to note that it was The Green Party and The Libertarian Party acting together who contested the stolen Ohio 2004 presidential election. The Greens provided most of the money and did the heavy lifting, but the Libertarian Party worked closely with them to demand the recounts that the Kerry campaign would not demand.

We won't have meaningful campaign finance reform until the SCOTUS overturns Buckley vs Valleo -- a hopelessly contradictory decision that both allows the right to regulate the size of individual campaign donations, but then goes on to equate money with political speech.

While one might argue the decision is wrong, there is nothing "hopelessly contradictory" about regulating the fundraising activities of political campaigns—a special type of organization—while at the same time noting that persons generally, not acting in coordination with such campaignns, retain the right to free political expression, including the right to use their own assets freely for that expression, found in the First Amendment.

And money is not political speech.

Money, qua money, is not political speech; money is simply a fungible resource. Freedom where it comes to using money to purchase the means to deliver political speech is, however, an essential part of the freedom of speech.

rmck1: Those agencies are toothless & the government is corrupt because wealthy people & large corporations have more incentive to manipulate the government than the average person. Most americans are, to use the scientific term, "rationally ignorant": the return on investment of involvement in politics is to them too small to take seriously, whereas in the case of the financial elite the tilt of a law one way or another could mean millions of dollars.

Look at the types that tend to run our representative-in-name-only political system. When people that benefit from corporatism, though being an obvious minority of the population, make up an overwhelming majority of the ones making the laws, you are never going to be able to truly combat privilege through expanding the reach of politics. Barring a constant state of near-revolt, engaging in politics for any reason other than to end the concept as we know it amounts to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Why doesn't the "remember personal info" thing actually work? It always forgets everything even though I have "yes" selected.

BTW: before anyone shouts "wingnut!" or similar, my personal priorities lean more towards defending civil liberties & combating our ridiculous foreign policy. I find the emphasis on social spending by many libertarians puzzling, seeing as the majority of our tax dollars are actually going to wars & corporate welfare.

cmdicely:

> Conflating the power of large corporations with the power
> of government is both naive and blindly ideological.

> Corporations are creatures of government; the power of
> corporations is a part of the power of government.

Maybe in some dry, legalistic sense that's an artifact of
corporate law -- but not in anything resembling common sense.

> That's a simple fact; recognizing it is neither
> "naive" nor "blindly ideological", though denying
> would seem to be at least one of those two.

Of course I understand the sense in which you mean this.
Corporations are chartered by and operate at the behest
of government. They're certainly not wholly outside
the government, like black market enterprises.

This is, in fact, precisely how the government
has a right to regulate corporations to begin with.

But to *conflate* them is to conflate private self-interest
with the public interest. Which is absurd on its face.

The EPA and Dow Chemical have rather strikingly different priorities.

Bob

rmck1: The EPA and Dow Chemical have rather strikingly different priorities.

Until a president like George W. Bush appoints former lawyers and lobbyists from Dow Chemical to run the EPA, with a mandate to screw the public interest and enrich the corporate aristocracy of Dow, which is exactly what Bush has done throughout the executive branch regulatory agencies.

Maybe in some dry, legalistic sense that's an artifact of corporate law -- but not in anything resembling common sense.

Corporations themselves are artifacts of law; they have no natural existence. They exist only through "corporate law", policies of government. They are, purely and simply, nothing but creations of the government.

Now, sure, there is a perception that they are something else, because that myth has been actively propagated, as a way of papering over the fact that they serve private interests rather than the public good, which would, were they recognized as entirely creatures of government, raise the question of the propriety of such a system.

It is, I would argue, this perception that is held by the naive and spread by those with ideological (or simply self-serving material) agendas, not the recognition that corporate power is government power.

But to *conflate* them is to conflate private self-interest with the public interest. Which is absurd on its face.

Wrong. To recognize that corporations are pure creatures of government is part of recognizing that government, whatever it ought to serve, in fact often serves the private interest, not the public interest.

To equate "government action" with "serving the public interest" as anything but a statement of hope or ideals, rather than facts, is unbelievably naive.

The EPA and Dow Chemical have rather strikingly different priorities.

Well, certainly their creation satisfied very different immediate interests. Whether, at any point in time, they actually have very different priorities is, well, rather variable.

As a former libertarian, very heavily involved in the movement, all I can say is they are irrelevant for a reason. They're almost all nuts. In private, they scorn charity, they almost to a man think they're right and everyone else is stupid, and they DO think they're part of an elite. Ignore them. Any ideas they have worth having already exist in mainstream American politics.

cmdicely:

>> Maybe in some dry, legalistic sense that's an artifact of
>> corporate law -- but not in anything resembling common sense.

> Corporations themselves are artifacts of law; they have no
> natural existence. They exist only through "corporate law",
> policies of government. They are, purely and simply,
> nothing but creations of the government.

Chris, this is bordering on arguing for the sake of arguing. Let's
run down the ways in which corporations are *not* equatable to
government action: They're not created by legislation or through
executive order. Their creation submits to no general plebiscite.

Corporations are a bunch of private citizens who coalesce together
under a legal rubric to pool resources, limit liability and raise
capital for the sake of economically benefitting themselves and
their shareholders. If the general public benefits from their
endeavors -- that's great, and it's supposed to be why they become
successful. But it isn't their central purpose, which is profitmaking.

> Now, sure, there is a perception that they are something else,
> because that myth has been actively propagated, as a way of papering
> over the fact that they serve private interests rather than the
> public good, which would, were they recognized as entirely creatures
> of government, raise the question of the propriety of such a system.

Chris *this* is a myth -- and a rather old-fashioned one redolent
of Eugene Debs or William Jennings Bryan. Please Chris -- take your
legal portfolio under your arm, march into any corporate boardroom
or shareholder meeting in the country and announce to them all that
the business enterprise they're conferring about is "entirely [a]
creture of government." I'd like to know the wisecracks in reply.

> It is, I would argue, this perception that is held by
> the naive and spread by those with ideological (or
> simply self-serving material) agendas, not the
> recognition that corporate power is government power.

Oh yes Chris, I'm so naive, so ideological and have such a
self-serving corporatist agenda. "Corporate power is government
power" is, rather, truly the dangerous myth. Out of that you
get "what's good for General Motors is good for the country."
It privileges the ideological (and quite corporatist) notion that
the products put out by corporations are so vital to the public
interest that it's best if government leaves them alone.

>> But to *conflate* them is to conflate private self-interest
>> with the public interest. Which is absurd on its face.

> Wrong. To recognize that corporations are pure creatures
> of government is part of recognizing that government,
> whatever it ought to serve, in fact often serves the
> private interest, not the public interest.

And it enables a whole raft of reductive and unhelpful conspiracy
theories. Far better to draw a firm, clear line in the sand between
the public interest and private interests -- and to recognize that
corporations, as irreducibly private entities, do not directly serve
the public interest, while government action -- at least with a
vigilant and informed citizenry -- is directed at the latter.

The whole problem with corporate policy since the Reagan era of
radical deregulation is that corporations and the government have
*gotten in bed with each other*. The public *already* considers
large corporations an arm of state power -- which is why Republican
legislators can make speeches in favor of corporate deregulation
while knowing voters will consider this in the public interest.

> To equate "government action" with "serving the
> public interest" as anything but a statement of hope
> or ideals, rather than facts, is unbelievably naive.

To equate "government action" with "*never* serving
the public interest" is to exude a cynicism so toxic
as to render progressive political action impossible.

>> The EPA and Dow Chemical have rather
>> strikingly different priorities.

> Well,

Heh :)

> certainly their creation satisfied
> very different immediate interests.

No foolin'.

> Whether, at any point in time, they actually have
> very different priorities is, well, rather variable.

And when does it vary? When corporate cronies are
installed in regulatory agencies and consider it their
duty to *facilitate* corporate power, conflating the private
interest of corporate shareholders with the public weal.
Right now, the conventional wisdom is more like government
power is considered entirely a creature of corporate power.

In our individualistic, materialist society, it would
be a lot easier to *disentangle* these entitites and
firmly recognize their fundamentally disparate purposes,
than to attempt to reverse the pecking order.

Bob

Chris *this* is a myth

No, its an unassailable fact.

Please Chris -- take your legal portfolio under your arm, march into any corporate boardroom or shareholder meeting in the country and announce to them all that the business enterprise they're conferring about is "entirely [a] creture of government." I'd like to know the wisecracks in reply.

I'm trying to get what you think those wisecracks would prove, other than the fact the wisecrackers don't like challenges to the myth on which public acceptance of their privilege is based.

To equate "government action" with "*never* serving the public interest" is to exude a cynicism so toxic as to render progressive political action impossible.

So? Who was suggesting that government action never served public interest.

And when does it vary?

All the time.

When corporate cronies are installed in regulatory agencies and consider it their duty to *facilitate* corporate power, conflating the private interest of corporate shareholders with the public weal.

That's rather the normal case with government regulation of industry; are you familiar with the idea of an "iron triangle" in regulation?

Right now, the conventional wisdom is more like government power is considered entirely a creature of corporate power.

Government power (incl. corporate power) is disproportionately wielded by one group of people, major capitalists, who are such, generally, largely through corporate stock holdings (though there are other forms of capital, and its at least abstractly possible to be a major holder of capital without any corporate stock.)

Its not entirely unreasonable to see how this is seen as "government power" being subordinated to "corporate power", though, as I've argued, that somewhat misconstrues the nature of the power involved; it might be more accurately seen as the power of democratic government institutions being subordinated to that of nondemocratic government institutions.

In our individualistic, materialist society, it would be a lot easier to *disentangle* these entitites and firmly recognize their fundamentally disparate purposes, than to attempt to reverse the pecking order.

The only way to "disentangle" them is to destroy the "corporation" as an institution, and return the service of private interests to private individuals, who may, if they choose, act through private associations with no special privileges under law.

Chris, this is bordering on arguing for the sake of arguing. Let's run down the ways in which corporations are *not* equatable to government action: They're not created by legislation or through executive order.

Um, wrong.

They are universally created through executive action of the government authorized by act of the legislature, except in the exceptional cases where they are formed directly by a legislative act.

The fundamental premise of your distinction is not merely untrue, but the precise opposite of the truth.

cmdicely:

This is a shame, Chris, because I usually enjoy debating with you, but this thread has degenerated into pretty pointless rhetorical one-upmanship when we should be working towards a synthesis of our views. You know me well enough at this point to know that we're politically on the same side of the fence.

And since I'm not a lawyer and know jack about corporate law -- you might help *educate* me instead of nitpicking the broad (and fairly obvious) sense of what I'm trying to say with legal technicalities.

Individual corporations aren't formed by acts of the government, good gracious. That's as absurd-yet-technically-true as saying that the government creates licensed drivers or married couples, for that matter. An individual or a group of individuals petitioning the government for a license or a registration or a whatnot is not at all equatable to an act of the legislature or executive that will effect a swath of the public.

Now no, I'm not familiar with the "iron triangle" of regulation and it might be interesting to learn about it.

And since we're not going to dispense with the corporate business model any time soon, it might be more productive to work to ensure more vigilant oversight from our regulatory entities.

Bob

Individual corporations aren't formed by acts of the government, good gracious. That's as absurd-yet-technically-true as saying that the government creates licensed drivers or married couples, for that matter.

Its certainly true, and not as a mere technicality, that the government does create licensed drivers and married couples, and it would be absurd to characterize either as a private act, or the relations created as anything but a product of government.

You seem to use "absurd, but technically true" a lot when the truth is clear but no absurdity is present or argued for.

An individual or a group of individuals petitioning the government for a license or a registration or a whatnot is not at all equatable to an act of the legislature or executive that will effect a swath of the public.

The petition may not; the granting of it that protects those individuals, in the actions they take collectively through the agency of the "corporation" thus formed, from liability that they would otherwise be subjected to for harms inflicted is, in point of fact, an act of the executive, under specific authority of the legislature, that will effect a swath of the public.

Pretending that it is not merely offers a kind of support for the present status quo policy of corporations being loosely regulated as if there formation was not a public benefit and power given to particular individuals by the government, which ought to be conditioned on its serving, in some manner, the public interest, and certainly at least in not harming the public interest.

And since we're not going to dispense with the corporate business model any time soon, it might be more productive to work to ensure more vigilant oversight from our regulatory entities.

I agree with that, at least in terms of short-term pragmatism, which is why I disagree with your suggestion about "disentanglement", and instead support the idea of corporations being viewed and treated as the public creations they are.

cmdicely:

> Its certainly true, and not as a mere technicality, that the
> government does create licensed drivers and married couples, and
> it would be absurd to characterize either as a private act, or
> the relations created as anything but a product of government.

You know, my first response to reading this was to consider banging
my head against the monitor repeatedly until I blacked out and
collapsed on the floor. I know you're the very last thing from
a troll, Chris, and you're attempting to have this discussion in
good faith. And I do see what you mean. But it misses the point.

> You seem to use "absurd, but technically true" a lot when
> the truth is clear but no absurdity is present or argued for.

In the sense that a marriage, driver licence or corporate
charter is a contract, and it thus involves reciprocal
obligations between the issuee and the state entity that
issued it, that relationship cannot be private, true.

But this is such a narrow construction of the point I tried to make
that it's literally painful. The license or charter, once issued, is
for private use. The state doesn't tell me where, what or how often
to drive and it doesn't dictate the terms of my marital relationship.
Likewise, a corporation abides by the terms of its charter and
works to reap private profit from its particular enterprise.

Within, of course, a purview of regulatory law, I am still a
private citizen free to use my contract how I see fit. I can't
break traffic laws, I can't committ bigamy and I can't scam
out of my fiduciary obligations without facing penalties --
but other than that, I'm on my own. This is how people see
contracts. If you want a tighter public rein on the activity
in quesition, write it into the contract to begin with.

> An individual or a group of individuals petitioning the
> government for a license or a registration or a whatnot is
> not at all equatable to an act of the legislature or
> executive that will effect a swath of the public.

> The petition may not;

And therein lies all the difference.

> the granting of it that protects those individuals,
> in the actions they take collectively through the agency
> of the "corporation" thus formed, from liability that they
> would otherwise be subjected to for harms inflicted is, in
> point of fact, an act of the executive, under specific authority
> of the legislature, that will effect a swath of the public.

To establish the particular regulation, yes. But the difference
is so excrutiatingly obvious: Laws passed by the legislature
affect classes of people involuntarily. As much as I jones for
a smoke in a bar, NJ law now says I cannot have one. But one
enters into a contractual obligation voluntarily. I decide to
become a driver, I decide to get married, I decide to incorporate
my business. And I do all these things for my private benefit,
regardless of any public obligation written into the contract.

> Pretending that it is not merely offers a kind of support
> for the present status quo policy of corporations being
> loosely regulated as if there formation was not a public
> benefit and power given to particular individuals by the
> government, which ought to be conditioned on its serving,
> in some manner, the public interest, and certainly
> at least in not harming the public interest.

I understand what you're saying, but I don't see this interpretation
of contract law ever flying -- and in practical terms I don't see
much difference between it and tightened corporate regulations through
the traditional government agencies. Can a contract be written in
such a way as to define a "public benefit" in the enterprise of
the corporation which then falls within the purview of the state
to control? Does that mean that the state is allowed to sue if a
corporation downsizes and lays off a number of workers, because
the employment provided to those workers is a "public benefit?"
If the corporation invents a better widget and automates production
which drives a number of its rivals out of business, does the state
have a claim against the corporation to ameliorate the industry-wide
negative externality thus created by all that new unemployment?

Sheesh, Chris, I know I'm arguing like a goddamned free
marketeer, but it's hard to see any way around this other
than to simply dump the corporation as a business model.

>> And since we're not going to dispense with the corporate business
>> model any time soon, it might be more productive to work to
>> ensure more vigilant oversight from our regulatory entities.

> I agree with that, at least in terms of short-term
> pragmatism, which is why I disagree with your suggestion about
> "disentanglement", and instead support the idea of corporations
> being viewed and treated as the public creations they are.

If I meet a woman and we fall in love, marriage is just a
way to formalize the relationship. If I need to drive a car
for whatever reason, getting a license allows me to do that
legally. And if I create a better widget or just want to make
more frozen pizzas, incorporation is likewise a means to that end.

In all cases, the initial impulse is entirely private, and the
benefits from these contracts accrue privately. To the extent
that these state-sanctioned behaviors affect other lives is the
extent to which regulation is appropriate. But without the initial
private impulses which produced them, these contracts wouldn't exist.

I don't think there's any way you're ever going
to get the business community to see its behavior
differently. That's why I advocate accepting the
behavior of corporations as private-motivated and drawing
a sharp distinction between it and the public interest.

Bob

Julian Sanchez has an interesting post on the view of libertarianism as a moral philosophy based on the non-aggression principal vs the view of it as a cluster of various political beliefs that share the common element of advocating less government involvment in both economic and social matters. If you're curious to see how libertarians talk about this in their own habitat, read the comments.

IMO, The non-agression principle purists are your typical heavily ideological radicals that every movement has and are just as unrealistic as the radical left. The LP has a self-reenforcing radical streak that causes moderate libertarians to not take it seriously and consequently not get involved enough to reign in the message to something electable.

This got me:

""Corporate power is government
power" is, rather, truly the dangerous myth. Out of that you
get "what's good for General Motors is good for the country.""

That assumes that by "country" it is really meant "the group that controls the government"...

Casual observation tells us that it is a grave error to confuse the self-interest of politicians with some generalized interest of the public. What's good for the country is never considered in the slightest, & they wouldn't know even if they did care.

In the sense that a marriage, driver licence or corporate charter is a contract, and it thus involves reciprocal obligations between the issuee and the state entity that issued it, that relationship cannot be private, true.

I'm not sure how "contract" has a role here; only marriage, of the institutions you discuss, is generally referred to as a "contract", and then between the partners not a private individual and a state.

The relationship of, say, a licensed driver to a state is not really a contract-like relationship; particularly, the privileges granted are not obligations on the part of the state in exchange for some act by the private party, they and all attached conditions can be altered virtually at will by the state, without recourse of the private licensee.

But this is such a narrow construction of the point I tried to make that it's literally painful. The license or charter, once issued, is for private use. The state doesn't tell me where, what or how often to drive and it doesn't dictate the terms of my marital relationship.

Sure, the status is granted for private "use" on the expectation of a public benefit accruing from that use. Which is why the kinds of "uses" the status may be put to (and those it may not) are rather exhaustively defined in law, and the conditions in which the license may be granted are likewise defined in law, by what the legislature has judged to be in the public interest.

Likewise, a corporation abides by the terms of its charter and works to reap private profit from its particular enterprise.

Yes, sure. The point I'm making is that if there work to eachieve private profit isn't serving any public interest, there is no reason for them to be granted a public charter at all.

To establish the particular regulation, yes. But the difference is so excrutiatingly obvious: Laws passed by the legislature affect classes of people involuntarily. As much as I jones for a smoke in a bar, NJ law now says I cannot have one.

I don't see how this is any more "involuntary" than the regulation of driving involved in driver's license law; as much as you want to, you can't drive on a public right of way without being able to do whatever is required by the licensure law, which is more than choosing to get a license: there are legal qualifications.

understand what you're saying, but I don't see this interpretation of contract law ever flying

There is no "interpretation of contract law" involved here, so I really have no idea what you are talking about.

-- and in practical terms I don't see much difference between it and tightened corporate regulations through the traditional government agencies.

Since I'm making the argument for the basis in principal of returning to tighter corporate regulation through whatever agency of government is convenient, I don't see why there should be a "difference" in the sense of an inconsistency.

Can a contract be written in such a way as to define a "public benefit" in the enterprise of the corporation which then falls within the purview of the state to control?

Such a contract is no more necessary than it is for driver's licenses; the state is free to set the terms of the use of such a license largely at will, without negotiating some kind of "contract amendment".

What is necessary is a public understanding that corporations, as recipients of public benefit, should be held to serve the public interest, and then the political will to do that through government action; rather than the idea that they are purely private entities, freedom of which from government regulation is somehow a natural right for which there is a strong presumption.

This may certainly be true of individuals, acting on their own, or in free association with no special government privileges. But when public benefits are granted, accountability to a public purpose is required.

Does that mean that the state is allowed to sue if a corporation downsizes and lays off a number of workers, because the employment provided to those workers is a "public benefit?"

Certainly laws could be written which would allow that. Though, unless they were far less blunt then your outline suggests, they'd probably be bad laws.

If the corporation invents a better widget and automates production which drives a number of its rivals out of business, does the state have a claim against the corporation to ameliorate the industry-wide negative externality thus created by all that new unemployment?

This is the kind of harm that you'd think would usually be handled by taxation rather than event-based remedies, as with most of the cases of your last example.

If I meet a woman and we fall in love, marriage is just a way to formalize the relationship. If I need to drive a car for whatever reason, getting a license allows me to do that legally. And if I create a better widget or just want to make more frozen pizzas, incorporation is likewise a means to that end.

Yes, so? People seek government action to serve private ends. This is hardly news. That doesn't magically turn those government actions into anything other than government actions, nor does it suggest that the laws which govern both the granting, and the acceptable behavior of those having, those government-granted status should not be written based on public interest.

In all cases, the initial impulse is entirely private, and the benefits from these contracts accrue privately.

Were that true (if by "accrue privately" you mean "go solely to the private party seeking the status with no external benefit") those would all be dubious uses of public power, particular to the extent that they involve public costs; of course, in each of those cases the public recognition exists specifically because of a policy judgement on the part of the legislator that there are public benefits from the these acts, and thus the availability of the status at issue serves public interests when granted in accordance with the regulation prescribed.

To the extent that these state-sanctioned behaviors affect other lives is the extent to which regulation is appropriate. But without the initial private impulses which produced them, these contracts wouldn't exist.

Most government action wouldn't exist without someone seeking something out of a "private impulse"; even the most archetypical "public interests" are simply aggregates of private impulses.

I don't think there's any way you're ever going to get the business community to see its behavior differently.

I'm not particularly interested in getting "the business community to see its behavior differently", and nothing I've said even remotely suggests that, that I can see.

I'm well aware that virtually every actor in society is going to seek its own self-interest, and certainly "the business community" is nothing special in that regard.

It seems to me that the major problem with this entire debate is that you've assumed a whole bunch of policy positions I've never advocated, based on my argument about the principal underlying corporate regulation, and that you are arguing that the principal is absurd based on assumptions you've made, but not really articulated, though you occasionally hint at, about those policy positions; I'm not arguing for anything but stronger government regulation of corporations through "traditional" agencies, based on the public interest, because such regulation has historically been based on the idea that corporations, as creatures of the law, are especially accountable to the public interest. That's the whole idea behind charters which (notionally) have to be approved, and which with severe misconduct could be forfeited, and sharp limits on the benefits provided by the corporate structure based on public interest.

Now, much of the enforcement end of that has been abandoned, with corporations (compared to people acting in the same fields without the corporate structure) receiving special benefits but less in the way of extra accountability (except in terms of publicly-traded corporations accountability to shareholders, but even that has been weakening.)

cmdicely:

> It seems to me that the major problem with this entire
> debate is that you've assumed a whole bunch of policy
> positions I've never advocated,

The debate has never been remotely about policy positions. We're
both in favor of greater and more effective corporate regulation.
The debate has been about picking each other apart on definitional
minutiae. I'm not a lawyer, Chris. When I use the term "contract"
in the broad Weberian sense of reciprocal obligation (I pay
the state some money and pass a test and in exchange the state
certifies that I can drive) it really doesn't matter whether
a DL is technically a contract or not -- what's salient is how
it's generally like a marriage license or a corporate charter.

> based on my argument about the principal underlying corporate
> regulation, and that you are arguing that the principal is absurd
> based on assumptions you've made, but not really articulated,
> though you occasionally hint at, about those policy positions;

It's not about policy positions. It's about the common vernacular
(and I would argue, correct) understanding of what corporate
interests are. They don't call it "the private sector" for
nothing. My drivers license may well be a creature of law or
a creature of government in a narrow technical sense, but when
I get in my car I'm taking private transportation. Likewise
corporations. If you wonder why they blanch at the notion of
being called "creatures of government," it's because they aren't.
The government didn't create them. It didn't mandate a particular
corporation into existence to serve a public purpose, the way
regulatory agencies or cabinet positions arise. They're a
bunch of private citizens who sign a contract or charter or
whatever it's called in the law books and receive some public
benefit in exchange for conforming to an extensive set of rules.

Now, if your argument is that the public benefits business entities
receive when incorporating are poorly stressed, and should serve
as a stronger political justification for regulation in the
public interest -- I think I'd probably strongly agree with you.

> I'm not arguing for anything but stronger government regulation
> of corporations through "traditional" agencies, based on the
> public interest, because such regulation has historically been
> based on the idea that corporations, as creatures of the law,
> are especially accountable to the public interest.

I don't know if being "creatures of the law" per se is what makes
them especially accountable. As a driver (arguendo, as I don't
drive), my license is a "creature of the law," too, and while I
should surely have to follow the traffic regs like every other
driver, there's certainly a greater need to regulate, say, a
chemical company. I think what makes a corporation especially
accountable to the public interest is the degree to which their
behavior impacts on the public -- and (importantly) precisely
because it is not in their self-interest as a private, profitmaking
entity to do so. That's why calling corporations creatures of
the public interest to begin with doesn't make much sense to me.

> That's the whole idea behind charters which (notionally)
> have to be approved, and which with severe misconduct
> could be forfeited, and sharp limits on the benefits
> provided by the corporate structure based on public interest.

Sure, and that's great. If a business entity is going to receive
special benefits at the public expense by incorporating, then it
should damn well have to submit to regulation in the public interest.

> Now, much of the enforcement end of that has been abandoned,
> with corporations (compared to people acting in the same fields
> without the corporate structure) receiving special benefits
> but less in the way of extra accountability (except in
> terms of publicly-traded corporations accountability
> to shareholders, but even that has been weakening.)

That's right -- and that's because the Republicans have been very
good at arguing that what's good for private corporations is good
for the public. This is the "entanglement" I was talking about.

If you want to say that corporations exist at the behest of the
laws and the government, that is certainly true. But that doesn't
mean that they share the same interests -- they don't. Corporations
are always going to have an adversarial relationship with anything
that impedes them from their business mission. That's why private
vs public is a real conflict -- and why corporations will never
submit to being defined as entitites which exist to serve the public.

Bob

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I don't know if being "creatures of the law" per se is what makes them especially accountable. As a driver (arguendo, as I don't drive), my license is a "creature of the law," too, and while I should surely have to follow the traffic regs like every other driver, there's certainly a greater need to regulate, say, a chemical company.

That comparison, it seems to me, goes beyond apples and oranges to being apples and, say, chipmunks.

In principle, my entire point is, being a creature of government should make corporations more accountable, all other things being equal, because they are granted special public privileges that other business are not, at considerable expense and risk to the public. That means that they need to provide some public good for the uncompensed harms imposed on others (through, e.g., liability protection) to be justified. So they ought to be held more accountable than other businesses doing the same things.

Of course, there are also reasons to make businesses, corporate or not, more tightly regulated when they do inherently dangerous activities, but that's an orthogonal concern.

Sure, and that's great. If a business entity is going to receive special benefits at the public expense by incorporating, then it should damn well have to submit to regulation in the public interest.

That's been my whole argument. I'm not sure why you've been so set against it.

That's right -- and that's because the Republicans have been very good at arguing that what's good for private corporations is good for the public. This is the "entanglement" I was talking about.

That was rather unclear: until now, I had no idea you meant "entanglement in the public mind" rather than actual entanglement.

If you want to say that corporations exist at the behest of the laws and the government, that is certainly true. But that doesn't mean that they share the same interests -- they don't.

I think this might be a central misunderstanding. I think you've taken my suggestion that corporate power is a type of government power to mean that corporate interests are coextensive with government interests which in turn are coextensive with the public interest.

This is not my point.

Recognizing corporate power as one application fo government power certainly means that the interests actually served by corporate power are, by definition, a subset of those actually served by government power. But it certainly does not mean that the interest served by corporate power are identical to those served by government power; government power is used to serve many diverse and often contradictory interests.

And, of course, while the interests served by government power ideally ought to be coextensive with the public interest, it certainly is not the case that they in fact are, though in the best of times they bear at least some resemblance.

Corporations are always going to have an adversarial relationship with anything that impedes them from their business mission.

So? Where is the mandate that government must allow the corporate form without a mission compatible with the public interest?

That's why private vs public is a real conflict [...]

I think that reverses "why", but at any rate...

and why corporations will never submit to being defined as entitites which exist to serve the public.

And the public benefit they receive is why the public should not submit to them being defined any other way. "Businesses" are not the same thing as "Corporations". Businesses can serve any purpose they like; corporations should only exist where there is a judgement that applying that form serves the public interest.

The idea of the corporate form as a purely private thing to which capitalists looking to form a corporation have what amounts almost to a natural right is toxic.

cmdicely:

> In principle, my entire point is, being a creature of government
> should make corporations more accountable, all other things being
> equal, because they are granted special public privileges that
> other business are not, at considerable expense and risk to the
> public. That means that they need to provide some public good for
> the uncompensed harms imposed on others (through, e.g., liability
> protection) to be justified. So they ought to be held more
> accountable than other businesses doing the same things.

Okay, my problem in this debate is to have no clear understanding
of what makes a corporation different than a garden-variety
business and what those special public privileges are. Had
I, I'm sure we could have avoided much of the frustration.

> Of course, there are also reasons to make businesses,
> corporate or not, more tightly regulated when they do inherently
> dangerous activities, but that's an orthogonal concern.

And not just danger, but also the scope of its impact on the
public. For instance, the airwaves are a public resource; I
nave would have deregulated them and nixed the Fairness Doctrine.

>> Sure, and that's great. If a business entity is going
>> to receive special benefits at the public expense by
>> incorporating, then it should damn well have to submit
>> to regulation in the public interest.

> That's been my whole argument. I'm not
> sure why you've been so set against it.

I'm not against this as a matter of law; corporate charters can and
should be tightened to extract more public good out of corporations
in exchange for public benefits like, e.g., limited liability. That
as a principle is perfectly fine with me, and is amply justified.

What I was (and am) against is the idea that corporations need to
understand themselves as creatures of the public interest. You seem
to argue that this is a matter of false consciousness; I don't think
it is. I think pro-regulation lefty types share this understanding
with corporate officers. What I don't want to obscure is the fact
that private interests are inherently opposed to public interests,
and that corporations are ultimately self-interested and value profit
above any kind of social utility which comes out of their enterprise.

Precisely *because* they're self-interested private entities,
the state thus has a competing interest in extracting compensatory
public good for the public benefits the corporate charter provides.

>> That's right -- and that's because the Republicans have been very
>> good at arguing that what's good for private corporations is good
>> for the public. This is the "entanglement" I was talking about.

> That was rather unclear: until now, I had no idea you meant
> "entanglement in the public mind" rather than actual entanglement.

I meant both. There's certainly the false consciousness of a GOP
PR campaign getting the guy on the factory floor to identify with
the economic interests of his boss, because his boss provides
all those jobs for him and his buddies. But there's also real
entanglement of a qualitatively different nature -- more than
merely sensible corporate deregulation -- which began under
Reagan and which has reached its apotheosis in the current regime.
The business cronies running the regulatory agencies, Cheney's
secret energy task force, the K Street Project, the revolving door
between government and lobbyists -- all coupled with the ideological
justification that government should be good for business.

My main goal in this argument is not to lose sight of the fact that
public interests and private interests are inherently adversarial.

Bob

cmdicely:

> The idea of the corporate form as a purely private thing
> to which capitalists looking to form a corporation have
> what amounts almost to a natural right is toxic.

Okay, on this point we can totally agree.

Benefits must be balanced by obligations.

Bob

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