Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Corporate statism redefined

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4 comments:

Mr roT said...

Guess I'll apply at GE. Easier than making up shit about climate science and you're actually doing something.

12/02/2009 10:28 AM
My Frontier Thesis said...

In looking at the historical record, it seems humanity needs to incessently keep in check these rather efficient (a loaded word, no doubt) post-Industrial Revolution entities. These large governments or corporations take on proportions that defy comprehension, almost to the point of metaphysics. For example, the railroads were built in this country under similar auspices: Big Government working in tandem with Big Industry (Carnegie and James J. Hill), and all with a nearly inexhaustible supply of borderline indentured servitude (see Irish and Chinese). Teddy Roosevelt came along and eventually had to break up these large congolmerates, and I don't mean to suggest the government is the savior. They too need to be watched with extreme vigor.

I don't think I'm typing any kind of new concept here. In the human struggle to make things work on this planet, it's easy to lose the individual amongst what otherwise seems to be a real efficient way of doing things. And this doesn't even begin to address how with these huge entities a shit ton of power is concentrated into a small group of government officials or a corporate board.

I was telling a friend the other day that the American model doesn't do away with fiefdoms. But it does allow for a near infinite amount of fiefdoms (small businesses and such) to exist, and even for an individual to create their own fiefdom. I'd rather operate under this model than one large, mono-fiefdom. With GE or the Federal Government, an individual has got to keep a stern eye on both.

12/02/2009 12:36 PM
Tecumseh said...

All fine and dandy, but how exactly does an individual "keep a stern eye" on either the Gov, or GE, let alone both? We're all otherwise busy with our little lives, and don't have the wherewithal to do much else. The whole point of elective democracy (or at least, a big point) is that one delegates such a task to the politicians who are supposed to represent us in the corridors of power. Ah, but then, good luck with that!

12/02/2009 2:29 PM
My Frontier Thesis said...

Doesn't seem like we're disagreeing here, Tecs.

12/02/2009 10:13 PM

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