Free markets do not fall prey to these robber barons. Such people need political protection. Subsidies and regulatory capture are necessary to such schemes.
Why do you imagine a monopolist referee (government) is immune the waste and abuse inherent in all other monopolies?
The larger the bureaucracy, the slower it is to react to change. Unless propped up by government, these megacorporations are unsusrainable in the free market.
Regulations are always sold as protections for the poor and disadvantaged, but implemented to benefit the political class. The real-world effect is more expenses and red tape for entrepreneurs, startups, and home businesses.
The powerful do need laws to survive. That is why they lobby government so aggressively. And we cannot change this rigged game.
"The powerful do need laws to survive," and at the same time, they do not. You're both right, allow me to explain.
There are two types of power players: the conqueror, and the dynastic heir. The conqueror becomes powerful by beating the other power players at their own game. These are the powerful who do not need laws to survive, as they can work with any system, either eschewing or exploiting the rules to get ahead. The dynastic heir, on the other hand, is one who has power handed to them, and cannot win a game that isn't rigged in their favour; these are the powerful who do need laws to survive.
Mafiosos do not enjoy subsidies and are awarded no political protection, and yet, they thrive in unregulated (lawless) areas of the planet.
They thrive because over-regulation or outright prohibition has created a black market. Their violence is a mirror of the government's violence, because government is itself a mafia writ large.
Mafiosos thrive in 100% lawless environments like remote refugee camps and abandoned war-torn no-mans-land.
MOBSTER ETHICS = NATURAL LAW
I'm still developing my Government As Referee Framework (GARF), but I'm imagining it as a collection of strictly regional (geographically city sized) transparent, independent entities with no FEUDAL HIERARCHY, acting as HOLACRATIC cells.
I agree, that's what I'm trying to address.
BIG GOVERNMENT = GOOD FOR MOBSTER CORPORATIONS
NO GOVERNMENT = GOOD FOR MOBSTER CORPORATIONS
Accurate
Unsupported assertion. As I stated in another reply, corporations are a government-created legal status. Corporations rely on government bailouts and handouts. The predatory megacorporations are not economically sustainable when consumers are free to choose, and competitors are free to offer alternatives. That is why the ones surrounding us today have used government to squelch all competition they can.
I agree that CORPORATE WELFARE exacerbates an already horrifying power imbalance.
However, CORPORATE WELFARE is not the core "problem".
If we cut all corporate welfare and gutted intellectual property laws (thoughts =/= property) and "deregulated" everything, we'd still have a horrifying power imbalance.
Well organized feudal hierarchies (MAFIOSOS) have always dominated individuals and small family based tribes.
Today we call them "corporations", but they've existed since the dawn of time.
We've swallowed their lies claiming they are "job creators" and "innovators" and their mergers are "good for consumers".
They sucker individuals into their schemes with hypnotic architecture and promises of "untold riches" and "merit based reward".
By the way, most of these manipulative propaganda tactics were demonstrated by the first "multinational organization", everyone else is just trying to put their own spin on it.
NO GOVERNMENT = GOOD FOR MOBSTER CORPORATIONS
MOBSTERS THRIVE IN THE ABSENCE OF GOVERNMENT
No, they do not.
If the police force was dissolved, they'd just hire their own private armies (many have already done this, look at the history of the Pinkertons).
I am familiar with the history of the Pinkertons. I also know about companies like Blackwater/Xe/whatever they have rebranded themselves to be now. However, it should be noted that while we have had problems like them, the latter especially exists as a government-sponsored organization. The Pinkertons were also expensive, and garnered bad PR that cost even more.
Corporations rely on externalizing enforcement costs through government. That is unsustainalbe if they need to handle it directly. Further, you're conversing with a gun guy. I support an armed populace equipped to withstand such an onslaught.
Meanwhile, the government wages wars at home and abroad with an uncountable death toll and incalculable cost to all of us. It is the true enemy if you are worried about the health and welfare of the most vulnerable.
How'd that work out for Ruby Ridge and Waco?
I agree.
They do this at the behest of "the military industrial complex" (MOBSTER CORPORATIONS).
Our focus should be on insulating the function of government from corruption.
Click to watch 5 minutes,
Armed people made problems for the Pingertons you mentioned. Armed people were not attacked by the police for protesting the quarantine. Armed Black Panthers scared the California government into making new prohibitions in the 60s. Armed protesters stopped the cops in the Bundy Ranch standoff.
Yes, the government responded with force to the Malheur protest and ambushed a man on his way to peace talks. The government used its legal system to entrap and Randy Weaver. The Waco siege was a publicity stunt that went sideways. It's not a guarantee of success, but it is a tool we need.
War is the health of the State. The MIC is corporations with charters and subsidies from the State that serve the State as it exercises its most essential function besides internal enforcement.
Guns in the hands of citizens sometimes work to their advantage and sometimes they just provide an excuse for the police to shoot them dead (they had a gun!).
If you really want to "defend yourself" you need one of these!
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a22254/russia-illegal-laser-weapons/
Guns are just a tool in the Independence and resistance toolkit. I don't mean to imply they're the be-all and end-all, but neither should they be disregarded, and gun prohibition for the subjects is always a definite signal the State sees itself as supreme ruler.
Stop giving your money to MOBSTER CORPORATIONS.
The corporations derive their legal status, subsidies, trade protectionism, intellectual property laws, etc. from the government, not market processes. The root problem is not businesses and markets.
The corporations derive their legal status, subsidies, trade protectionism, intellectual property laws, etc. from the threat of force which just happens to be provided by "the government" at the moment, but they are fully capable of hiring their own enforcers (Pinkertons) if and or when "the government" is dissolved.
The ability to inflict economic and or physical force is "the root problem".