James Leroy Wilson's one-man magazine.
Friday, September 16, 2005
The National Interest
No government has "interests" overseas. Open trade would be great. So would the safety of merchant ships. But we have no more right to dictate trade terms to other countries, than they do to ours. And the safety of merchant vessels is the responsbility of the merchants, not governments. To steer foreign policy to suit the interests of, say, Big Oil, is the absolute worst form of corporate welfare.
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Monday, September 19, 2005
ReplyDeleteA LIBERAL BLEG [Jonah Goldberg]
Attention you hearty liberal Corner readers. This is a good faith question. I want to know why you think big corporations are "rightwing." I have heard many arguments, and with very, very, few exceptions I find them unpersuasive or insufficient. I am eager to learn what I am missing. I'd like to hear you make the case. Please, no sophistry, circular arguments or rank assertion. Specificity, examples and defined terms would be very helpful. I'm not particularly interested in the argument that corporations are bad for the environment and therefore they are rightwing. I'm not necessarily dismissing that argument, it's just that I've heard it so many times before. Please send honest and thoughtful responses to JonahResearch@aol.com. Send dishonest and unthoughtful responses to Ramesh. I'm also interested in articles which have made this case.
Posted at 04:35 PM
http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_09_18_corner-archive.asp#076901
4:58 PM
What's your point, anonymous? For all I know, this is spam. Anyway, I believe monopoly of land and resources is rightwing. I think corporate welfare is reprehensible. But I'm not a liberal as Goldberg would understand it, and I didn't mention right or left in this post.
ReplyDeleteAs a courtesy, however, I will answer the question. The "big corporation" as presently constituted IS a right wing phenonmenon, not a product of free markets.
Shareholders are protected BY LAW from suffering personal loss, aside from the price of stock, if the corporation goes bankrupt, and are not liable if the corporation is found guilty in a civil suit.
They get the profits, without the risks (again, aside from the price of stock), of the business venture. This is govenment granting special privileges. It is inherently right wing.
While I haven't checked all the sites, it appears that all of the blogs in the libertarian left blog ring have been infected with this spam message.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'm baffled as to why anyone would ask such a question. The answer seems to be pretty damn obvious to me. In addition to your comments, here are mine:
State socialism is something that has always been referred to as being left wing, while state capitalism is associated with the right. Corporations are state capitalist institutions.
Additionally, corporations often promote values that are anathema to most people on the left.
Just for future reference (this is targeted to the state capitalist anonymouse), any future spam comments targeted to this blog ring will be deleted from my blog.
Freeman, your little logo thingy looks like a koala with palsy! Jimbo, gotta luv the MASSIVE head. Re corpse, oops, I meant corporations-in many ways they seem socialist to me. State backed, inefficient, bailed out by government, infested with cronyism, 5-year plans, locked parasitically into the powers that be, monopoly surely is socialist? I understand that economies of scale, massive projects, need a plethora of resources but could not a corporation be formed using alliances between smaller entrepenuers ie my favourite thang, small business? Interlocking cogs, rapid success or failure, adaptation, meritocracy, pure profit as motive. Ah, the dream.
ReplyDelete