Business vs. government: an abstract political question

Something I've been thinking about lately: communism is supposed to prevent business from screwing us, and the argument against it is that government will screw us. Libertarianism is supposed to prevent government from screwing us, and the argument against it is that business will screw us. The argument against the current system, however, is that government and business work together to screw us. With that in mind, is there any way to get government and business to screw each other, so as to leave us relatively untouched?

(I'm trying to address this on a relatively abstract scale, since I'm not sure whether us Tropers know enough about politics and economics to answer it on a practical scale.)

Eh... ideally you want business and labor well under the boot of government, and government in turn well under the boot of the people.

It's easier to have everything democratically working in tandem than to try and pit it all against each other and hope things still get done.

Or, to put it another way; you want a government that regulates business to the benefit of the people as a whole, but one which leaves enough freedom to allow the businesses to make significant profits. Ideally, this would result in a system that worked toward maximizing the country's economic potential.

There's no clean way to keep them at each other's throats, so our best bet is to fuck them both. Neither government nor business are trustworthy, and neither should be allowed to survive: Government should be exterminated, along with the corporate slavemasters.

The entire economy should be put under direct control by the workers, and the elimination of injustices in the redistribution for wealth would greatly diminish the need for law and order: When the people own the goddamn place... They tend not to riot.

edited 7th Dec '11 4:59:32 PM by SavageHeathen

There's no good way get rid of either one, so our best bet is to control them both. Both government and business can be trustworthy, and both should be allowed to survive: Government should be restrained along with the corporate big cats.

Couldn't change the next part because it's too radical.

Why do soemthing radical when we have a system that works (social capitalist liberal dmeocracy)?

edited 7th Dec '11 5:37:41 PM by Erock

The first thing you should bring to mind is that both these things are run and operated by people. The "us" you speak of quite often work for one or the other, so everything either does affects all of us. You cannot, on any practical level, actually separate us from our businesses and our government and the consequences of their actions. They're not separate from our society; they're part of it. Any solution that acts as if they're entirely separate from the rest of of society is not an actual solution.

So yeah, enough government regulations in place to make sure that business doesn't screw us over. And enough watchful citizens to make sure that the government doesn't go crazy. Which is what things like voting and protests and recall petitions are for. I know that's not really an abstract answer, but there's not really one for this question.

The current government is bad because the previous generations got elected on a platform of "business and government working together will improve things" disguised as "Government is the enemy."

There were laws keeping business out of the government, and we should re-instate laws like that.

Business should be set be policed to crack down on the risk taking that lead to the recent recession and to safeguard the worker rights. Business should not be exterminated or prevented from growing; the main thing is to take down monopolies well ensuring that profit does not gain greater important than progress. Such notion may lead to better results then both planed economy and capitalist market combined.

Authoritarianism is over reliant on a single figure most of the time, leading to a single rash decisions leading to problems. Similarly oppression is not only morally pragmatic; it is inefficient. Why work your hardest if your foremen keep beating you up? It is said that when tyranny becomes a reality, revolution becomes justified. At the moment in our representative government we face problems that not everyone can just decide “I want to be a political figure” and have chance to win against the status quo, for the status quo is funded and familiar. We are also see corruption, political figures paid by lobbyists to do certain acts and a media controlled via monopolies that strive for their own power. Such must be dealt with to create a true democracy.

However; democracy can not emerge without government. Anarchy is not a solution; it is a force of the strong over the weak. In turn it is also would lead to groups emerging that strive to create order... via a dictatorship of the most harsh? Also direct democracy has issues. People are... not the wisest of things and may vote for the most ideoitc of laws... or worse the most oppressive of laws. We can get misinformed via media and we may seek that of the selfish as oppose to the selfless. How many of us would introduce a tax on ourselves baring the selfless? Things are short term focus now but may be short term focus then.

We must have a structure to allow good decisions to make... and the Civil Service of the society must be set to ensure the shortfalls of democracy are dealt with via proving the long term aims in management. Perhaps setting a house of a parliament to appointing senior figures of fields like Science, education, civil welfare, industry, merchants and such may be an answer to address balance? Maybe. Constructed via the fields elected the candidates for appointment? Maybe.

What is important is balance; harmony between order and chaos will lead to a bright future. Such be needed for the evolution of humanity.

I suppose the problem is that both business and government have very little incentive to not work together, which happens to "screw everyone else". A lot of political and economic theory is designed under the assumption that people are generally in opposition, but the boundaries of loyalty aren't nearly so clean cut. Economic theory assumes businesses will compete with each other to lower prices and raise quality, but there's much more incentive for them to form a collective monopoly. Political theory assumes the branches in government will keep each other in check, but there's much more incentive to form a unified party and prevent opposing parties from entering any branch.

It seems we need a lot more game theorists in charge of things.

edited 8th Dec '11 6:31:52 AM by Clarste

"Or, to put it another way; you want a government that regulates business to the benefit of the people as a whole, but one which leaves enough freedom to allow the businesses to make significant profits. Ideally, this would result in a system that worked toward maximizing the country's economic potential."

Which is pretty much what we actually had from the 1930's up to about the mid-1980's. Going back to that wouldn't be all that radical. Limit political campaign expenditures, restore Glass-Steagal, and strengthen the social support network. Doesnt require Communism, just some common sense policy.