In a recent thread by SenorBef, The Second Stone repeats a bit of ignorance I’d like to fight here (so as not to derail SB’s thread). I’ll post a link to the offending post later tonight, but basically TSS says that fiscal conservatives “serve their corporate masters” even if they aren’t being paid for it.
That sentiment is wrong as hell and is a product of the way certain fiscal liberals look at the world they have specific ideas about how they want to re-distribute wealth from the rich (which includes “OMG the corporations!”) To the poor (or other such facored groups, like “the working class” or “the middle class” or whatever). They see fiscal conservatives opposing those policies. So, they think fiscal conservatives must support “OMG the corporations” vis-a-vis their favored groups.
But that’s just simply not the case. No fiscal conservative specifically wants “OMG the corporations” to have greater profits or wealth or anything like that. They simply favor policies they believe are best for society as a whole and don’t favor the handouts to these people’s favored groups.
It’s like a christian saying that an atheist has an affirmative disbelief in god. That ain’ true–an atheist simply doesn’t believe in god. Same here–a fiscal conservative simply doesn’t favor those handouts and has no affirmative desire for the betterment of “OMG the corporations!”
OK. But note that I’m pitting the general idea that fiscal conservatives have some special love for “OMG teh corporations!” and not just those couple of posts.
You’re saying fiscal conservatives don’t directly favor corporations - they just favor a system that favors corporations. That’s a pretty fine distinction to make.
And on a seperate issue, I’ll ask you (as a representative of fiscal conservatism) on what basis you decide which policies are best for society as a whole. What factors do you look for in a policy when you’re deciding if it’s good or bad for society?
Does “best for society as a whole” mean the greater amount of good for the most people, or simply the greatest possible good?
Suppose you can have 1 person increase their wealth by $1000000 or 10 people increase their wealth by $50000. The greater amount in value would be the one person, but I would argue that the greater good is to spread it out between the 10 people. I guess that’s my beef with conservative economic philosophy in general
When Rush Limbaugh said he never got a job from a poor person, he was essentially saying that no amount of poor is too much as long as there are enough rich people to balance it out. Sure, 10 people are dirt poor and have to skimp on heat to pay their rent, but as long as one person’s super rich, then society as a whole benefits, right? 1000000 > 500000?
Conservatives should think less in terms of math and more in terms of relative wealth. The redistribution of wealth they like to accuse liberals of is simply a kind of social darwinism they engage in that doesn’t prevent suffering, but measures some vague notion of societal betterment to make up for suffering.
In a nutshell, I think that liberals want to reduce suffering and conservatives want to simply mitigate suffering with happiness. To me, if no one’s suffering, we don’t all need to be rich as long as we can get by. To a conservative, it seems, it would be better to make up for the suffering with extreme satisfaction on the other end
Well, it’s like this: I may not care one way or another about Bob’s welfare in general, but I think it should be illegal to beat up Bob (because I think a society in which it is illegal to beat up Bob is a better society). So I favor a policy that favors Bob. You have a problem with that?
I just love how quickly you generalize from The Second Stone to “certain fiscal liberals” while loudly declaiming that “no fiscal conservative” can want such and such bad thing.
I’m not even an attorney and I would have your ass on cross. Time to amp up the CE.
The Second Stone’s list of gratis astroturfers is pretty baffling (c’mon – John Mace? Seriously? He’s one of the most reasonable posters on the boards). But it’s not a contradiction to believe that someone is astroturfing by unwittingly serving the interests some set of masters. So, for example, Poster A may serve specifically “corporate” interests by defending pro-corporate positions and failing (perhaps for emotional reasons) to give due consideration to anti-corporate ones.
I’m not sure whether this is what The Second Stone meant, or even whether it’s reasonably applied to anyone in particular. It nevertheless seems to me a much more defendable interpretation.
What I meant is that JM constantly is obtuse about corporate and authority figure motives while feeling free to ascribe bad motives to individuals on far less evidence. And no, I’m not going to choose a citation from his 40,000 plus posts.
My Junior Beef with corporations is that they have a duty to their shareholders to make money and by law shuffle off responsibility that individuals could not do in similar situations.
Personally, I admit to being a fiscal liberal: capital should be used as a tool to ensure liberty of individuals and states. If a nation has credit, it should spend more during recessions to balance out economic hardships because economic hardships have the effect of enslaving individual people through financial instruments and taxation. If you’ve got to work for the corporation and/or state without respect to your own conscience and for your own purposes, that is enslavement, even if one isn’t permitted to use the label slave.
And what would you post in that thread had I done that?
Look buddy, we all know you’re an idiot, we don’t need any further proof. But thanks for providing some. I’m sure you’ll continue to accuse fiscal conservatives of lurving teh corporations in subsequent threads and you’ll never think about how stupid that makes you look.
Very little, probably. I just think it would’ve made for a better discussion and would be less likely to degenerate into insults. But whatever, it’s your thread.
So you’re saying that you don’t favor a pro-corporate system because you’re pro-corporate. You say you have reasons for favoring this system that are unrelated to the effects if has on corporations. But you don’t want to discuss what those reasons are because you feel it’s outside of the scope of this topic.
I’m a fiscal conservative that favors abdicating a tremendous scope of responsibility to the government. The basic principles of the free market cannot exist without a strong regulatory regime. Given history, astroturfing, and modern society (to name just three factors), there is no way I can successfully exist in the market. I cannot tell what additives are likely to give me cancer, what drugs will cure my child, or what meat is safe to eat. There is a vast network of consumer resources that are supplementary to government oversight, but cannot replace it.
This is not to say that there are no redundant, useless, or ineffective regulations. Support for a strong regulatory regime–and the acceptance of concomitant impact on business profits–does not mean free reign for regulators. It is my intuition (because I haven’t read every single regulation out there) though, that the ratio of “good” to “bad” regulations isn’t extraordinarily in favor of maintaining government oversight in a vast array of areas.
I’m a fiscal conservative that favors policies I believe are best for society as a whole. Just as I am saving for the Dudelings college fund, I think that investments in education (and job training) are necessary for a more secure future of the nation as a whole. These investments come as a cost to society today, but will benefit society as a whole. Similarly, a wide range of infrastructure, energy technology, and health care improve the overall society in ways that benefit it greater than the cost to an individual.
As a fiscal conservative, I believe that corporations should be free to earn as much as possible without fear of government takeover (not that we’ve had any) or purely opportunistic targeting of profits. However, I also recognize that as a member of society there are a host of services that I rely on that do not benefit large segments of the population. In turn, I recognize that other large segments of the population require (need) a host of services that do not benefit me. As a primary recipient of capital flows, I recognize that this is a legitimate revenue stream for the government to ensure the welfare of the entire society, not just my particular monkeysphere. I reject the notion that everyone is entitled to the same level of creature comforts, yet also reject the notion that the enormous wealth of the country cannot support (in various fashions) a society that is fundamentally free of want and fear.
Well, I don’t think there’s much to discuss, really. I’m really just pitting a particularly prevalent form of ignorance (and I’ve given two examples in this thread). Not sure there’s much to discuss about it really beyond showing that it’s ignorance.
If you have a point, please accept my invitation to attempt to make it.