zlacker

[parent] [thread] 1 comments
1. pmoria+(OP)[view] [source] 2020-03-31 16:35:58
"If you're upset with the outcomes, change the system that's incentivizing that behavior. Don't penalize the players for succeeding. This is the role that government is supposed to play."

Great idea, except that the government has been effectively coopted by the very corporate and wealthy interests they are tasked with regulating.

Government officials regularly come from high executive posts in industry, and when they retire from government work are hired in to cushy, well-paid jobs at the very corporations they had regulated and assigned government contracts to while they were in office.

The "pro-business" faction has been busy deregulating as much as they can and selling off government assets to private corporations. Anti-trust enforcement has been a joke for decades. As we speak environmental regulations are being rolled back with the excuse of making life easier for polluting corporations in the wake of the cornavirus crisis. With the successful capture of the Supreme and lower courts by conservatives we can expect to see even more corporate and wealth dominance.

At this point in history I don't have much hope in the government reigning in corporations or the wealthy. The trend towards ever more wealth concentration and ever greater inequality in the US is crystal clear.

replies(1): >>tdfx+Rm1
2. tdfx+Rm1[view] [source] 2020-04-01 01:01:43
>>pmoria+(OP)
> At this point in history I don't have much hope in the government reigning in corporations or the wealthy

I would agree with that. But I still think it's probably easier to fight that fight than to try to shame corporations into achieving unquantifiable, often mutually exclusive goals to everyone's satisfaction. I'm not hopeful government will change any time soon, I just want to make sure we're directing the resentment to the right place.

[go to top]