Originally posted by: Rainsford
Originally posted by: Jaskalas
Originally posted by: Rainsford
I think the solution to these kind of problems is obvious...don't allow large chain stores in small towns, period. The amount of influence and impact they have is far too great to go along with the complete lack of good citizenship companies usually display. I'm not faulting them, as Nebor suggests, that's how the shareholder system works. But it's silly to pretend otherwise.
Imagine that, a Dem suggesting locals are better than large chain stores. Now if only you applied that logic to government in general - then the locals might give you a higher approval rating instead of feeling like they get screwed all the time.
If it wasn't clear, I agree with what you said.
Who says I don't think of government that way? Democrats don't all get together and decide to think, and I happen to think that local government can be in a position to deal with local issues better than the federal government can some of the time. Of course I also think that there are times when federal policy is the way to go, and I think that being part of a country means the authority of local government must still follow the basic principles of this country. Lucky for me, there is plenty of room to do both.
That's one of at least two major fallacies the right shows in this thread - the first one being that they think all liberals simply love big government, the more the better.
By believing that straw man, they then without thinking - key phrase - tend to reject 'liberal positions'.
Because they're so polarized around always arguing for 'smaller government', they project and don't notice liberals tend to have a balanced view, where it's situational.
They misinterpret liberals' rejection of their automatic constant calls for 'smaller government' almost regardless of the situation as liberals' just loving big government.
The second of the fallacies is the way that they don't ask any questions about whether 'shareholder value' is the way policies should be set. They mechanically argue that this and that policy are caused by the fact that the policy increases shareholder value, as if that's the whole discussion; when liberals say 'that's nice and all, but there are larger interests to consider than the shareholders', they get that blank stare.
This is the great service the movie 'The Corporation' did: to explain how the corporate model is 'sociopathic', and unsuitable for setting societal policy, it needs democracy setting boundaries for the playing field and can then be a very useful system. It's somewhat analogous to the way that you want soldiers given orders and limits from above - you don't just tell soldiers to make up any mission they want, and to make up their own rules of engagement, and if you did, you would have disastrous results. You need a democratic government above the military saying 'on balance, this military action is a good idea, and this other one is not' - even though democracy can fall short on the task at times, too.
Just because policy X increases shareholder value doesn't mean society benefits from it, and society needs to be able to say 'no' to the policies bad for it.
The dominance of corporations in the political process challenges that, and undermines democracy.