The aims of corporations are often dead-set against the wishes of affected citizenry, the company's employees, sometimes even the corporate executives (wearing their "private citizen" hats).
Stop all corporations and non-person entities from contributing to political campaigns! Stop unions! Stop the Sierra Club!
Still with me?
Are we down to allowing only individual citizen donations to political parties?
Corporations don't represent the best interest of their stakeholders (employees etc), but the narrow interest of their shareholders in a competitive marketplace where shareholders are only looking for one thing. In other words, it is not the job of a company to do what its employees find most pleasing.
Whatever their interests are, I'm certainly not knee-jerked opposed to them since I like their products and I like the effects that companies with good products provide to the economy.
At very least I think that corporations serve as a contrast to the inordinate megaphone that politicians, celebrities, and the mainstream media have.
Really, I don't think that the protestations against corporations contributing to the political process are all that well thought-out. Should Michael Moore no longer be allowed to make his documentaries? They're blatant political commercials. How about Sean Penn? Should he be muzzled from being a political spokesperson since he has such an inordinate amount of influence vs an individual citizen?
How about news organizations? Every single one out there has some sort of political bias. Should they be allowed to blatantly support political parties and candidates?
1. I'm a business student. I'm founding a company. I'm not opposed to corporations either. Just their involvement in politics.
2. Michael Moore and Sean Penn are individuals, not corporations. I support the right of the Koch brothers to speak out, though I don't much like what they have to say. I don't support the right of their corporation to pay to be heard on political matters.
3. It's paid advertising that I'm opposed to; corporations can make documentaries all day long if they want to, it's paying to have people watch them that I have a problem with.
4. Newspapers can blatantly support political parties and candidates. People choose to read them if they wish; they don't find them embedded in other content as paid advertising.
EDIT: in response to the below, see my post above (GP).
All I can now determine is that you just don't like the politics of many corporations and want them to be muzzled.
I don't agree with Comcast's position here, but I think they should be allowed to be heard if they want to be. Democratic societies are strong because they're made up of a lot of strong non-governmental institutions and groups, not just an all-powerful government and powerless individuals.
So, you are saying if corporations are allowed to advertise, they won't hire lobbyists?
(Not that marketing to the public is any less bribery or more trying to convince people than lobbying is, the only difference between the two is the universe of people being targeted for bribery/convincing.)
Unions aren't exactly geared toward the best interest of its members either, even though they pretend to be.
I'd be a lot happier if no one could donate at all. But I also think price signaling is bullshit, so probably better not to listen to me.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United#Opinions_of_th...
People are somehow okay when the monopoly is government, even though time and time again government does a piss-poor job when given control.
Competition doesn't work so well for infrastructure because it's both essential and it has a high physical barrier to entry. Private corporations exist to increase profit, and that means paying employees less and lowering consumer value. Municipal broadband is making citizens happier than Comcast, Time Warner, etc.
... 90% of whom don't care if the product is any good or not.
In each case, additional competitors would increase average total costs for services by lowering economies of scale. But there's a far more significant characteristic: there's no differentiation between services. Combined with their being natural monopolies, you have the primary reasons for their status as government-granted monopolies.
Broadband services, on the other hand, have seen an explosion in product differentiation. We're using one word, but what we're actually referring to are a variety of separate services with significant differences (speed, quality, manner of delivery, etc.) that offer different degrees of utility relative to each other. Whether a municipality grants exclusive or even just preferential rights to a provider, the end result is that the service provided is isolated from competitive forces outside the service region.
Even if Google Fiber is in the next town over and offering an indisputably better quality service (such as endless speed and a free magical Genie with every install, wishes included), it has no consequence on the service available in your town.
That's one of the sticking points when you're dealing with coercive monopolies. When you're talking about other utilities, the negative consequences of that coercion (in an economic sense and not the pejorative) pale by comparison to the efficiencies stemming from lower production costs. The analysis for broadband, however, isn't nearly as static.
Municipal broadband certainly isn't a silver-bullet. Some have knocked their rollouts out of the park; others have bungled them. But dx4100 is missing the point by comparing municipal broadband to private firms. The status quo doesn't consist of competitive markets; it's a collection of non-contestable markets. When entry to the field is effectively closed with no competitive forces, municipal broadband and other alternative ideas represent some of the only real options available to us.
In other words, what a sad little fucked up situation we have on our hands.
Ex: In Georgia if you have a gas line to your house you can purchase gas from any gas provider in the state. This style of legislation is probably more inline with what the constituents want than the municipally owned solution or the single provider solution.
What's important is that this fiber infrastructure will compete directly against Comcast, and Comcast is working hard to eliminate or at least hamper that potential competition in order to maintain the status quo of their oligopoly.
It is an incredibly bad thing for the City for Comcast to be doing this, because it's not in the Public's interest. Increased competition, however, is in the Public's interest.
Considering it doesn't exist yet, you cannot really call it a monopoly. Thanks for confirming that you consider Comcast one though.
> even though time and time again government does a piss-poor job when given control.
You are correct there, the government's control over internet service has enabled a few mammoth carriers to become monopoly's of their realm. Be it for 'national security' interests like AT&T or be it piles of lobbyist money from Comcast.
The end result is no competition amongst peers. The only thing coming close would be companies that lease off of Comcast trying to sell packages at a lower cost. This of course doesn't last long since AT&T Comcast and others worked out exactly how to kill leased operators at will subsidizing rates in areas leasers operate to remove any profit potential from the competition that was forced to buy from Comcast anyways.
But complain about an operator that doesn't exist yet like it is a monopoly. Blame them for things they have not done yet. Try to push forward the fantasy that Comcast has a quality of service beyond destroying other quality services.
As if everything illegal were bad and everything legal were good.
That is what one would call a "utopia," but based on popular opinion, we do not live in one.
As an aside, I despise Comcast, Time Warner and many of their ilk, but they are completely well within bounds to do this.
There is no benefit to denying society this option.
Therefore, preventing it, especially in the name of your corporate interest, is "bad". To say what they are doing is good is sociopathic.
Legalities have no relevance to this at all.
That being said, I hope they lose.
Many people think this is buying, it is simply helping the candidate you agree with the most win the election.
Perfectly legal. And perfectly justified for them to espouse what they believe is in their own best interests.
They're still assholes though.