Governments can't resist mission creep.
True, but it's not like people or corporations are that much better at resisting it, is it? Show me a big organization, and I will show you a whole lot of fingers in a whole lot of unrelated pies.
True, but it's not like people or corporations are that much better at resisting it, is it? Show me a big organization, and I will show you a whole lot of fingers in a whole lot of unrelated pies.
However, government is a special case: it reserves to itself a monopoly on violence and the ability to set the rules. Special cases deserve special treatment.
edit: it's a small world, I recognise your username from LP.
Standard Oil literally blew up the competition. Homestead Steel hired the Pinkertons to bash heads (and kill a few). Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Aetna kill indirectly by denying shelter, access to finances, or healthcare coverage.
The Libertardian arguments are getting more than a little tired, and we've heard them repeated a few too many times.
But these case are remarkable because they are rare, not common. And because in all such cases they predate the settlement of an uncontested government monopoly on violence in some geographical area.
I suppose you are mistaking me for a Rothtard, an anarcho-capitalist who believes in a free market in violence. Not so; it's been pretty well shown by now that centralising the social violence function is, on the whole, a better strategy.
But it comes with the downside that you've centralised a lot of power and it needs particular supervision and constraint.
Well, let's refer to your initial claim:
"However, government is a special case: it reserves to itself a monopoly on violence and the ability to set the rules."
Now, either you're tautalogically defining any organization which sets rules and exacts violence in pursuit of its ends as a government (which is a meaningless distinction), or you're making a nonsense argument. Actually, both are nonsense arguments. Note too that I've included a number of other organizations other than state-registered corporations, though I include those.
Yes, historically, companies have acted violently
Sure. Where historically was:
July 6 when Montreal Maine & Atlantic declared total war on the town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/15/us-train-lawsuit-i...
April 17, when West Fertilizer Company declared war on West, Texas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Fertilizer_Company_explos...
Ongoing corporate war through the 2000s carried out by the Gulf Cartel subsidiary Los Zetas in Neuvo Lardo, Mexico, with death tolls running to the 100s annually: http://www.pro8news.com/news/96625619.html
Ongoing petro-religious corporate warfare in Iraq, with a death toll in the 10s to 100s of thousands: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/07/15/police-a...
May 15,2 2013, Wells Fargo's war against individuals who were not even its mortgage holders: https://livinglies.wordpress.com/2013/05/15/wells-fargo-wron...
November 25, 2012, war on behalf of American and other clothing manufacturers and retailers against Bangladeshi garment workers: http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/25/world/asia/bangladesh-factory-...
December 2-3, 1984, war by Union Carbide against the citizens of Bhopal, India: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster
All of these are cases in which violence was used by companies directly or through conscious and deliberate disregard for human safety and consequences in the aim of profit. The use of force to secure control or direct gains.
Or perhaps you'd like to address companies such as Blackwater (now Xe), armed affiliates of oil, gas, mineral, and diamond operations, forestry operators, and others, who transact directly in death and force?
The distinction you're drawing simply doesn't exist.
(That must be someone else, since I never used this nick before this account and don't even know what LP is. The Libertarian Party?)
Governments dying all the time? Like where? You mean in small countries? I'm talking about developed countries here, with big governments in place. They are very unlikely to die any time soon.
As for countries dying, even great powers, consider this:
Do you have any recent example of super-powerful corporation waging war around the world by themselves? Any example of corporation launching WW1 or WW2, or even something remotely big as the Vietnam war, all by themselves ?
It's fairly obvious that no corporation nowadays has the financial means to wage war by themselves. It takes 100 billions to wage war in Iraq. Top tier companies make that much in REVENUE, not even profit. How would you expect them to spend so much? Your point does not make sense.
My problem is that I am arguing a centre line that two schools of thought are misunderstanding. The centralisation of violence in the state serves a useful social function that decentralisation does poorly; but that selfsame centralisation is dangerous and must be closely and jealously guarded.
The first clause of my argument angers certain strains of libertarian and the second clause confuses various kinds of leftists who mistake me for a libertarian.
How exactly?
Read a little history. HE came with a single example, because you ASKED for an example. Read history books on the issue, and you'll find tons of other examples.
From Shell in Nigeria, to United Fruit Company in Latin America, to the big coprs in Hitler's Germany. E.g:
"""Big business developed an increasingly close partnership with the Nazi government as it became increasingly organized. Business leaders supported the government's political and military goals, and in exchange, the government pursued economic policies that maximized the profits of its business allies. Nazi Germany transferred public ownership and public services into the private sector, while other Western capitalist countries strove for increased state ownership of industry."""
There are tons of other examples. Not to mention that the question is quite brain-damaged: corporations don't make war directly, hiring an army and such.
They make them by exercizing political and financial influence. And that is not usually done by a single company: it's done by multiple corporate interests, that pursue their goals in tandem. E.g the so-called "millitary-industrial complex".
>It takes 100 billions to wage war in Iraq. Top tier companies make that much in REVENUE, not even profit. How would you expect them to spend so much? Your point does not make sense.
LOL. They don't spend "so much". That's not how it works. It's like he's explaining that to a ten year old.
Corporations bribe the right persons, create the right conditions, push and influence policy and such, and let the people of a country (or several) fight. That is, what corporations do is diverting governments and politicians, from serving the people, to doing their work for them.
We are coming back to what I said. Governments wage wars, not corporations. Without government involvement corporations are helpless. Government, ultimately, are responsible for military actions and the usage of force.
So, I dont see how my statements were wrong.
You should watch the documentary Hubris : Selling the Iraq War. It's on YouTube for free.
People wage wars. Whether they use governments, corporations, churches, or other vehicles to do so is a matter of convenience and what is available -- all have been used. If you shift more power to governments, governments will more often be the choice. If you shift that power away from governments, other choices will take over.
"Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people." -- Jawaharial Nehru
You have WAY MORE examples of States leading wars than corporations. Even in recent history. Proves my point.
Not really. It proves it only against a bizarro argument that nobody made, that coporations lead wars directly.
Of course states lead wars. Corporations don't have armies and state like powers except in very few historical situations (namely, in the colonial era, like the East-India company example).
It's not about who "leads the war" or "who fights in it". That's not what we mean when we say corporations create wars.
What we mean is that corporate interests (often of more than one corporation), exert power at states to further their interests, including by war, but also by other kinds of malice (dictatorship, lackeys in government, favorable laws, igniting civil tension, etc).
The fact that governments are more able to wage wars does not prove anything about what kind of entity is more likely to start one given that ability.
You live in the Matrix or something?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini#Creation_of_Fa...
("opposed to class warfare" / unions)
To be fair, the description given of the East India Company works for both the Dutch and British companies.
I mean you said this "Corporations don't make War and enlist people to fight for them."
This is obviously false.
Oh, they very much do. Either through friendly governments or directly, in less developed places.
The Krupps and several other business interests were financing Hitler, for example.
And multinational corporations push dictatorships, civil tension and even full blown wars all the time on smaller countries. There is a reason some are called "banana republics", and it's not because they produce bananas.
As for the number of people killed, you're just arguing about quantity, not anything fundamentally different and less violent about the nature of corporations. Corporations are clearly willing to kill people. If they were bigger and had more resources, like governments, they'd kill more people.
The government of Togo also doesn't kill many people in foreign wars. Its not because they're instrinsically less violent.
I am talking about wars from one country to another country.
Only governments can start international wars by definition.
You know, the wars that kill vast amounts of people ?
International wars tend to be more bloody due to the increased stakes and military power involved.
You will find out the later largely outweighs the first.
Since more people die in international wars, the majority of people who die in wars die in international ones.
Of course, what you don't mention is that outside of wars, there is a relatively tiny amount of violence in most developed countries, as a result of the monopoly on military power.
It's all a matter of frequency. How many international wars have you had recently? What about regional conflicts, like Ethiopian troops fighting Islamists in Somalia? Fact is, you get a lot more small-scale conflict on average than large-scale conflicts.
Besides, I don't understand this argument of corporations being opposed to governments. Private interests in strategic areas have worked hand-in-hand with governments to further their agenda (British Petroleum, United Fruit, Shell) or are the armed hand of the government (Blackwater).