If "Big Business" is so bad, then what makes "Big Government" any better?

Great Debates
1

I’ve noticed that some folks tend to believe that “Big Business” (BB) is bad. BB conspires to destroy the environment, screw the little guy, and control the government (or some such – not to suggest that all these allegations are baseless). I have also noticed that many of these same people believe that “Big Government” is good.

I suspect that the same factors that make Big Business bad would also be at work in Big Government as well. Why would this not be the case?

Please comment about your own beliefs regarding this question. If you want to gripe about Big Business, Big Government, ot the proponents/detractors of either, please start a thread in the pit. I want to know why you think one or the other (or both) is good or bad.

~~Baloo

2

Well, as a voter, Big Government is responsible to me, Big Business isn’t.

Of course, if the govt fails being the extension the people’s will, I won’t be terribly happy about it.

3

Following Jaakko: Big Government is nominally accountable to the people, and to society at large. Big Business is functionally accountable to its shareholders, its bottom line, and, at the most, its customers. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, per se–its just no way to run a country.

4

The diffrence is BG=conspires to destroy the environment, screw the little guy, and control the flow of information.

5

One could argue that Big Business and Big Government are now one in the same, since the former controls the latter.

–Caliban

6

…Amen, two heads of the same snake
“Structures of governance have tended to coalesce around economic power.”-Chomsky

7

Don’t think I can say it any better than Caliban did.

But, Baloo, I am also very surprised that you see the main discourse in this country being “big business bad…big government good.” I see it more like, “markets can do no wrong and are always wonderfully efficient; government can do no right and is always bloated and wasteful.” Of course, what is interesting in addition is that “markets” are a moving target…In the case of the drug industry, they mean markets subsidized by lots of government research and monopolies in the form of patents. Whereas, in the case of gasoline, they mean markets uncorrected for the huge externalities that are known to exist and that underprice this commodity. (In either case, it is markets + lots of other stuff such as corporate law…which last I checked was not handed down by Divine Providence!)

Hell, in the current election, all George Bush had to do was label Gore a “big spender” and claim that he was going to grow the government (by some amount, by his own estimates, that was way less than it has shrunk under Clinton/Gore in the last 8 years, BTW) and this seemed to be an effective debating tactic.

8

If it really is like that, it’s because people like you allow it.

Ah, hell. A nation in which less than 50% of the citizens bother to vote doesn’t deserve to rule itself.