Posted by Michael Bechler on July 26, 2001 at 18:02:34:
In Reply to: "serving corporate interests" posted by Ken on July 26, 2001 at 15:22:51:
There are two sides to business, especially at
the macro corporate level -- the creative and
the manipulative. The creative side of business
is what you're talking about, and I agree. Most
everyday business people are simply providing
goods and services in a competitive economy
and that works. The government extorts money from
them
The manipulative side is the part that rigs the
tax laws so that they fall on the normal-sized
everyday businesses. If the large corporate
players were paying their share, the local guys
could pay a lot less. This is the type of business
that buys politicians, fixes prices,
and passes laws to
crush their competition and gain monopoly status.
They've been known to destroy the governments of
small countries, and send in the Marines if the
undercover operation fails. This behavior is
more typical or large corporations who are far
removed from their customer base.
One other thing they do is to manipulate
legislation so that it falls on the honest
business people and not them, then convince the
populace that it was those lousy liberals that
caused this heavy burden (it isn't -- when the
liberals try to constrain them, they have their
lobbyists deflect the constraint so it constrains
someone else, then they blame the liberals. It's
a slick trick and it works.)
As for "noble society", I never said that. All I
(meant to) say is that as people get more crowded
together, individual rights must come into
greater conflict with group responsabilities. It's
an inevitable tradeoff.
Mike