tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7893272060787897238.post8538837739327075095..comments2024-03-19T08:42:45.690-04:00Comments on The Delaware Libertarian: Comment rescue: Levers in a democracy and corporate statismSteven H. Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09097470960863103473noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7893272060787897238.post-48359135575345675462009-08-13T04:45:10.784-04:002009-08-13T04:45:10.784-04:00I understand better the points you were trying to ...I understand better the points you were trying to make. Still not sure I agree; I need to digest a bit. I will throw some counterpoints and/or random thoughts out there though, because I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back to this.<br /><br /><i>Why can I do this? Because in both of those cases I have easy access to competitor's products, which is manifestly not the case with health insurance. There, at best, thanks to prohibitions on inter-State competition, I only have access to two, maybe three competitors, and artificially created markets in which one company holds well over 50-70% of market share. Not because it has the better product, but because it has the benefit of government regulation enforcing a near-monopoly situation.<br /><br />So I think it is justifiable to claim that I have far fewer levers to use as a citizen against a health care corporation than in most other cases [there may be some comparable cases; I just cannot think of them right now, which suggests their rarity].</i><br /><br />You say that, but exactly how much good have those levers done you in reality? None. The lack of choice is still there, and was created by the government, not the corporations (by your own admission). That's my point. It should also be noted that the reason you can use the government to address your grievance is because the government created the grievance in the first place. I wouldn't blame MBNA if the stoplight outside their HQ was malfunctioning.<br /><br /><i>It is difficult to argue, on a national scale, that elections have not turned the country's political direction in dramatic fashion, far more dramatically that we can affect corporate operations...</i><br /><br />Ahh, but that's not the claim you made the first time around. You said that <i>you</i> had access. Voters as a group might change things, but individual voters don't. If you want something changed, you have to hope 50 million other people feel the same way, and then hope they actually make the change in office. (What would really be different right now if Kennedy hadn't died, or if Goldwater had won, or if Carter had been re-elected? My guess is not much. The same changes would have occurred, just in a different year; long-term effects would have been the same. I'm sure that's cold comfort to a black man in Alabama in 1964, but my point is that long-term change was inevitable regardless of election results.)<br /><br /><i>...the rise of strong multi-national corporations with economic, political, and even military power to rival small nations has even more dramatically changed this equation.</i><br /><br />1) Which corporations, and (especially) which small nations? I don't sit around at night and chew my nails worrying about Belgium or Vietnam. Hell, Vietnam was considered our enemy within my lifetime, and now I'm trying to get a job there. And I wouldn't consider North Korea to be militarily small.<br /><br />2) It doesn't really matter, because as soon as these corporations contradict the interests of the US Government, they'll go the way of Saddam Hussein, apartheid, and one-party rule in Taiwan.Bowlyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08368370082055845451noreply@blogger.com