"Freedom" thread or something

Gerinski wrote: The funny thing is, you seem to despise big corporations, hyper-powerful lobbies, paying taxes etc and demand liberty. But how will your liberty prevent those of you who succeed in amassing money and power from becoming like those who you despise? It is your hyper-liberal system which enabled them to get there.

This is a misconception. Companies only become hyper-powerful because they have the government behind them. In the absence of government protections, companies are wholly at the mercy of their customers, and face continual threats from competitors. Consumers would have much better protections in a society where the law doesn't protect companies from their competitors.

Gerinski wrote: Consumer rights are a set of collectively agreed conditions which a seller needs to commit when selling a product to me, saving me the work of having to find out and negotiate what are the precise conditions every time I purchase something.

Such as?

thellama73 wrote: Companies only become hyper-powerful because they have the government behind them.

thellama73 wrote: Gerinski wrote: Consumer rights are a set of collectively agreed conditions which a seller needs to commit when selling a product to me, saving me the work of having to find out and negotiate what are the precise conditions every time I purchase something. Such as?

Gerinski wrote: thellama73 wrote: Companies only become hyper-powerful because they have the government behind them.  I would have sworn that it was the other way around, that companies could not influence the government unless they had become already highly powerful. I guess that the government's favours do not come for free?

A rich and successful company can influence the government.  Nothing wrong with being rich and successful.  The problem is that once the rich company buys out the government they get federal power behind them to abuse the market and consumers like they couldn't before.  There's a difference between being a powerful company with an abundance of wealth and a hyper-powerful monstrosity that can squelch competition and evade the law because they have the government in their pockets.

Gerinski wrote: thellama73 wrote:   In the absence of government protections, companies are wholly at the mercy of their customers, and face continual threats from competitors. Consumers would have much better protections in a society where the law doesn't protect companies from their competitors. Manipulating consumers is not that difficult, we are in a music forum so I guess I don't need to say much more, Justin Bieber anyone?. Without government monitoring, the best-manipulating companies would rule. Cool  Laws are NOT supposed to protect companies but to protect consumers (or rather, not this either, but simply to protect that trade is done in a fair way from both sides). If it's not the case let's address that, but saying that abolishing the government is the solution is again naive, if not simply nuts.

As I mentioned before, manipulating consumers would be much more difficult in a natural-law based society where the companies don't have big government behind them and actually have to be honest with their customers.

And I'm no fan of the mainstream music industry, but people have the right to listen to Bieber if they want, and the music industry has every right to meet those people's desires by providing them with mass-produced music to listen to.  The music isn't hurting anybody.  I, of course, would argue that thousands of people are missing out by only listening to mainstream pop, but you can't seriously argue that people can't access quality music today because of the mainstream music industry.  It's all over the internet, and thrives locally in cities.

And I don't think abolishing the government is the solution, either.  Drastically reducing the size of the government and reforming its laws is the solution.

Gerinski wrote: rogerthat wrote: Note that in America, 'liberal' actually means somebody who desires equality and would like the govt to intervene to curb private monopolies.  In most other parts of the world, the liberal is the guy who believes it is ok if the rich get richer if no civil liberties are trampled in the process. Oeps, are you sure?  because this is of critical importance in these discussions! I take liberal as indeed minimum interference from the Gvmt, let the free market decide what happens.

Rogerthat is right Gerinski. "Liberal" in the US is closer to "socialist" than everywhere else where "liberal" is really "laissez faire liberal". If you say the US is "ultra liberal" to an American some will be quite happy to agree as proof that the US is a socialist country. It's difficult to know what word to use. "Conservative" doesn't apply because it involves other concepts regarding personal issues and foreign policy. But we all understand what you mean (especially those like I who were born with the "liberal" applied to free-market views and not to socialism) 

^I like how we all posted the same response at the same time 

I too, Gerard, understood what you meant originally.

Ambient Hurricanes wrote: I too, Gerard, understood what you meant originally.

Likewise. 

Ambient Hurricanes wrote: ^I like how we all posted the same response at the same time  I too, Gerard, understood what you meant originally.

Gerinski wrote: You will have still conflicts (why wouldn't you?), your judges will get very busy and gradually they will generate judisprudence and that will eventually become new law.

This is how things are now for us.