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Comment by jblow | Hacker News Reader

The way socialism puts people before money is via government control of resource allocation. That is by necessity authoritarian (even in the USA).

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Actually, it is done by the willingness of the governed who think that through community resource sharing we can take care of each other. That is why the important stuff (medicine, education, protections) is free o almost free.

If it were through willingness of the governed, then individual members of the governed who did not agree would be able to opt out ... ??

That is the fundament of Anarchism.

Capitalism is also authoritarian, as companies are authoritarian entities.

I don't think this is true, corporations do bad things, and there are bad corporations, but no corporation has anywhere near the power of a state. Corporations can't force you to give them an arbitrary amount of your income the way the revenue service can. Corporations can't kill or imprison people. Corporations can't control and set rules on currency. Corporations can't regulate industrial practices or limit others from participating in the market.

In fact, corporations are actually creations of government. Corporations would not exist were it not for laws defining certain times of companies with limited liability for owners.

Banks and investment funds control our currency, governments are at best a serious player. many governments are smaller than and often forced to do the bidding of corporations. Companies like wallmart and macdonalds control more what people eat than the us government or those people themselves. If you think companies don't have a lot of power you are deluding get yourselves - the only way to have choice for consumers is when they (through government) control and check the market. If government doesn't monopolies and other anti competitive behaviour nullify any of the free market benefits very quickly.

This used to be true. Nowadays, some corporations have more power than states and have more money in the bank than the whole GDP of multiple countries. Corporations can steal income and can indeed kill people, they are just not powerful enough to do it in the western world yet. Corporations do regulate industrial practices a lot through massive lobbyism, the examples are countless.

And at least we all have SOME control over governments, not the case with companies.

Were it true that you had control over your governments you would have control over the companies would you not, as it is the government that regulates and controls companies.

Yes ultimately we the people hold all the power and should decide how we want things to be.

... Problem is that we can only do cider things based on the information we have and to the extend we understand the issues. Controlling media and limiting education are two powerful ways in which both governments and companies control people.

Don't corporations produce and survive only because they produce stuff that people choose or not to purchase? Monopoly sources exist of course but as Peter Thiel has pointed out, the capitalist world is dynamic with what he calls creative monopoly at work. You maybe stuck for choice this year but likely not in the next.

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