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Pragmatic Andy

I think what folks don't understand, in general, is that unless you compel
corporations to act in the public/consumer interest with
existential-level fines and possible jail time, they absolutely will
just grind up babies and use them as fertilizer, and sleep well at night. This nonsense of "less regulation" and "smaller government" is a fantasy from earlier, less complex times. Even then it was probably bullshit. Corporations need to be on a damn strong leash, otherwise, you are.

17 October at 17:09 | Open on mastodon.social
6 comments
Third spruce tree on the left

@PragmaticAndy Back in the days of Carnegie, Rockefeller, Morgan, Vanderbuilt... their greedy hijinx resulted in anti-monopoly and fair business regulations, that stood for decades; income taxes on the wealthy were jacked. And so we had a good middle of the century where regulation kept corporations in check and taxation paid for social programs.

Then Reagan and everything got repealed. And now everything is shit again.

17 October at 17:16 | Open on mas.to
George Dinwiddie

@PragmaticAndy
Small family businesses can (not always) have concern for others, but at some point of growth that seems to become impossible. Working in a machine-like system makes people act like machines.

17 October at 17:21 | Open on mastodon.social
CrazyDogLadySezHi

@gdinwiddie @PragmaticAndy This is why I keep plugging The Unnaccountability Machine by Dan Davies. (good review here: enlightenmenteconomics.com/blo)

Great read if you haven’t already. Dan Davies’ sense of humor was a bonus for me. 😎

17 October at 17:42 | Open on mastodon.social
Poloniousmonk

@PragmaticAndy

I'm old enough to remember those times, and it was always bullshit. Economists called trickle-down "voodoo economics".

"Conservatives" never have a single fact on their side, anywhere or anywhen as far as I can tell. All their apologists are always making up bullshit to justify maintaining a perpetually expanding pyramid rather than a just society. Marx mansplained it over a hundred fifty years ago and the abject failure of a pyramidal, feudal society was made undeniable by WWI.

We've been inhabiting a post-factual fantasy since then. This is a good place for one of my favorite quotes:

"The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."--Orwell, 1946

Thanks for giving me a soapbox :)

@PragmaticAndy

I'm old enough to remember those times, and it was always bullshit. Economists called trickle-down "voodoo economics".

"Conservatives" never have a single fact on their side, anywhere or anywhen as far as I can tell. All their apologists are always making up bullshit to justify maintaining a perpetually expanding pyramid rather than a just society. Marx mansplained it over a hundred fifty years ago and the abject failure of a pyramidal, feudal society was made undeniable by WWI.

17 October at 17:42 | Open on autistics.life
Matthew M. - Mastodon SJW
Cluster Fcku

@PragmaticAndy --->>>> "Corporations need to be on a damn strong leash, otherwise, you are." <<<<---

17 October at 18:15 | Open on mastodon.social
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