If any man's money can be taken by a so-called government without his own personal consent, all his other rights are taken with it; for with his money the government can and will hire soldiers to stand over him compel him to submit to its arbitrary will and kill him if he resists. - Lysander Spooner

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[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

A corporation that can grow endlessly, will become big and important. So big, no one can understand its processes. So important, no one dares make any decisions. Then, it will stop acting like us, and begin acting like a giant animal. Now it's hungry, and it wants to eat something.

Small corporations can make phones too. But they can't claim to invent rectangles and sue anyone who uses them. Or force you to use their "free" OS so they can decide what people are allowed to do with their phones. Or create an alliance of large patent owners to force all future developers work with them.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

everything you say about corporations is true, it's the natural progression of power and capitalism I assume.

But leaving aside electronic technology for a moment and looking at just roads, I was watching a doco about Papua new Guinea the other day, the roads are very rough there now and the government control since independence in 1975 is weak at best. Villagers [bandits] along the highways drop trees across them and then start to chop them up to clear the road, demanding a toll of a few euro from all the cars and trucks before they allow them to pass. The police come along, ensure the extortion is not too excessive and is being peacefully conducted, then leave. Coming back later to take their cut I assume? Now fast forward 20 years when government is say, non-existent! Then what happens on those roads?

My point is, in the absence of strict government control and "taxes", you end up with anarchy and the roads are useless anyway as far as long distance trade and commerce is concerned. This pattern has been repeated every time government control lapses. Colombian highways are another example, Venezuelan ones now too. Unfortunately we can't turn the clock back to 1970, which was in my estimation the peak of western civilization, and the peak energy use per capita btw. We can't go back and we can't arrest the natural progression with a few laws either. There is no magic fixes for civilizations rise to oppression and the subsequent collapse, you either have mud huts and bear skins or what we have now with all its attendant corruption.

I for one wont fight the system because I know that it's pointless to do so. Every major 'Victory' over oppression in our western societies has proved hollow. Unions brought better wages and conditions: But inflation and offshoring of jobs stripped those gains within a generation. Anti-trust actions broke up large companies: And those smaller operators simply banded together in cartels to maintain the extortion. Mobile phone charges in the US and here seem cheap since the break up of the monopolies but if you compare them to rates in places like the Philippines they are actually outrageous.

Fighting the system is like fighting yourself because at the end of the day we all want the same things as the corporations want. We want as much as we can get for our product, our labor and our money. That's why I said we are the corporations. We work and we expect raises, we shop and we expect the best price, we invest and we expect good returns. Just like the corporations. It's pointless to fight them or the mega rich, but we can copy them, play the system, and many of us do.

You said << A corporation that can grow endlessly, will become big and important. So big, no one can understand its processes. So important, no one dares make any decisions. Then, it will stop acting like us, and begin acting like a giant animal. Now it's hungry, and it wants to eat something >>

What you just described is the people of america. A giant animal at this stage, hungry, and they want something to eat.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

DNA editing is already possible, and immortality is in sight. With enough time, anyone can learn. Soon, the stupid majority will disappear. We will become animals or gods. The world can't change, but we can. I'm not sure whether the elites have plans for a final war.

Realistic anarchy models expect citizens to act as soldiers. Unrealistic anarchy models have not-power-hungry mercenaries. Libertarianism still has a state, it just wants to take away the means of oppression. Unless bandits can grow into becoming the new de facto state, they shouldn't be a problem.

The federal government was supposed to be weak. Shall not infringe and all that. A powerless idiot can't do much harm, and a strong leader would just naturally rise in a crisis.

Corporations will buy what the state can sell. Different countries are corrupt in different ways.

The situation in South America is influenced by every power on this planet. I don't know what its people can do.

[–]Akali 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That's not true. They do become complexe, I'll give you that, but their process are clear even if it would take you weeks or even months to pass through it. They have client and supplier and they are specialise in specifict part of the supply chain. In the Phone you use, there's usually decades of company working on it simply because each pieces are built separatly.

As for Monopoly trying to shape the market and regulate it, there are what are called Anti-trust law which purposes are to dismentle and limit the power of monopoly to regulate the market. Now, there could be an argument as to wether or not these law should be more severe, but they do exist and have dismentle quite a few monopoly in the past, the biggest dismentling being the rockerfeller oil industry.