Posted by alexzeitler 10/22/2024
Any sufficiently large company could simply build their own private army and enforce whatever "law" they wanted. Essentially, this would result in a Mafia society which would seem way worse (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia).
Liberal Nation States + Capitalist Corporations are kind of the same evil in different clothing. They are undemocratic. You either have capital and control the corporation, or you don't. You either have political capital and control the state and its violent mechanisms of control, or you don't.
> If tech companies (and technology generally) are stripping power from the state, so be it.
Could you explain to me what you think the difference would be between:
1. Living in an authoritarian city where the state has total control over your day-to-day life. 2. Living in an authoritarian company town where the company has total control over your day-to-day life.
(If your response is "the free market" please explain why we wouldn't just see anti-competitive behavior between the corporations in order to mutually supress workers and consolidate their control?)
I would say the main difference between (1) and (2) is the nature of the compulsion.
If my company town sucks and I’m talented, I can find a better company town.
But with the state, such agency is either high friction or downright impossible to achieve. For instance, if Im American living abroad, I still am required to file my taxes to the American state, even if my life and employment has nothing to do with my place of birth.
A company town never gains that much power.
I have a question for you, regarding
> I also believe that the "less state, the better". But what about a state that is controlled by council composed of worker and citizen councils?
Is this a system like in ancient Athens, where regular folk were basically selected at random to serve in govt for a rotation? I like it! But, I don’t understand how this system precludes private property.
What's stopping the company from hiring a private police force to prevent you from leaving?
> For instance, if Im American living abroad, I still am required to file my taxes to the American state, even if my life and employment has nothing to do with my place of birth.
I think you are looking at current systems as they exist and claiming that these are inherent properties of states/corporations. There is a broad spectrum of corporation. You could have a company that is a dual partnership between owners, or a corporation in a social democracy that is compelled to "behave well" by a strong liberal government. On the opposite extreme, you could also have the Dutch East India company which was basically a colonial administration with as much power as a state. The subjects of the VOC were equally as oppressed (if not more) as someone living under totalitarian state control.
There is no inherent benefit that corporate control has over state control. I think the metric to look at is how democratic the implementation of a system is. Sure corporate control of your life might have less friction in its current iteration, but what if they gain more control?
> Is this a system like in ancient Athens, where regular folk were basically selected at random to serve in govt for a rotation? I like it! But, I don’t understand how this system precludes private property.
I was thinking more along the lines of Russia after the abdication of the Tsar, prior to Boleshevik takeover. Worker's councils (soviets) controlled their factory, and a council of soviets controlled each region. The Supreme Soviet was basically a top-level council. There is no private property because the "means of production" was controlled democratically by a council of workers.
I'm not saying this was a good system of governance (it collapsed almost immediately when faced with a centralized force), but I am just giving a counter-example to the statement that "the state is meant to move public funds into private control". That statement needs some qualifiers since there are many different examples of states.
I think that a more universal description would be "the state controls the distribution of wealth (or power)". This can either be the distribution of wealth from many to few, or few to many.
> In the digital realm, companies’ control of information, unfettered agency, and power to act have almost overtaken that of governments.
Why is it assumed that governments will act better if the power to control information is in their hands? We see this time and time again that the control over information is the most manipulating force a tyrant can wield. Why should we trust government over companies? At least with a publicly traded company we can sell stock faster than we can elect new leaders.
I could go on and on, but I would rather face down one tyrant than an army of them. But the way things are going, we might be facing both soon.
Democratic governments have some form of accountability to those elected, if none other than periodic elections. If you are fortunate enough to live in a country which has free and fair elections, then vote.
Companies do not have such constraints and operate strictly in self-interest.
I understand companies act within their own self interest. But the problem is when we provide government with enormous power it becomes within the self interest of companies to influence government rather than provide value to society.
Now expand your model to one where the government, politicans and citizens aren't monoliths.
> who controls the politicians is a profitable game for big corporations
It's a pertinent game for everyone. That's the point of democracy. It's still a profitable game in a dictatorship. It's just that while democracy gives a peanut-gallery seat to even the most disinterested citizen, autocracies hoard those seats for the deserving.
“State control” isn’t a monolithic lever. You can have a theoretically powerful but weak state if power is properly shattered. This is the lost art of designing democracies. (Not just throwing elections at every problem.)
With companies I have options to not engage at all. I don’t have that option with the government.
We see this with the government - how often does the government ever remove laws? Or reduce size? Very rarely.
It seems to me that if the goal is to ensure one is not coerced, whether by business or government is not to try and create mechanisms to ensure coercion is only benevolent, but rather to ensure they never have the power to coerce people in the first place.
Influence and power follows a power distribution. This is an age old problem.