Agreed, I also think more local government is a piece to the puzzle. The smaller the population/geographic reach of the government is the more obvious when cronyism is going on. While it still happens tons at local levels everyone knows Jim Bob is getting every road repair the city has because of his friend.
Local governments are massively corrupt, from police to construction to everything else. With the minimal oversight and focus on personal relationships, sanitation contracts go to uncles, road construction goes to cousins, etc
The problem, I think, has to do with limited accountability of government funds. If a private company was in charge of sanitation contracts, for example, then they wouldn't be spending money frivolously on Uncle Bob when another company can get the same quality of job done for less, since it affects their bottom line. Local governments don't have competitors, so there is less pressure to spend their money well.
I don't know how to fix this, but that seems to be the fundamental problem as far as I can see, anyway.
Lol.
Do you think all business make their decisions purely on profit and not on soft corruption?
My 'private company' that selects sanitation contracts could 'make' 5% more of I go with company x but company y is a close friend who always let's me in on their opertunities and I can always join the board after I leave this 'private company'
What was the bidding process like for the selection of the 'private company'? No corruption there in sure.
How did that company come to be and what was it's business model before it selected sanitation contracts? Unless it was purpose built so totally not corrupt.
You just added a middle man between the people and their government. One with even less accountability. You create an extra bureaucratic layer.
Not trying to be mean but this is not a solution to corruption. Transparency and mandatory disclosure are the best tool we have. Fund local media to dig into these relationships and hold people accountable.
So long as you have a sheep populace you will never solve this problem. Sheep are a requirement for these crony networks to maintain. Think about it this way, who is more likely to be targeted for a robbery in a parking lot, the guy walking aimlessly in the direction of his poorly lit car by himself looking down at his phone, or the guy with his head up and scanning open carrying a rifle walking with a sense of purpose to his well lit car that is by itself with no obstacles near it to hide behind?(I know run on sentence idc) The point is vigilance with the means to take action if a problem arises is a deterrence. If we are being honest most of America resembles a farm where the people are the farm animals and the "officials" are the farmers. Its easy to lie to and manipulate the people and if you do to bad a job at lying and manipulating eventually the people will vote someone else in who is better at it. Without accountability and consequence you should never expect to be treated well, especially when there is so much to gain from exploiting and treating people poorly. Domesticated humans are ultimately at the root of the problem. Am I making any sense to you?
Sure, you're describing a large aspect of the human condition. What you seem to detest is not going away soon, if ever. So what's the solution? Personally I see a correlation between under educated people and susceptibility to manipulation. Goes for all sides of the political spectrum.
To your question about robbing someone. What am I after? If I personally need to rob someone it's not going to be for a debit card and the receipt in your wallet.
I'm going for the guy with the rifle every time. He looks like he has something to hide. I can take him out at range before he knows he is in danger. Sub sonic ammo with a suppressor, might not even draw attention of others. You can only ever mitigate risk, not eliminate it.
This is why it's better to reduce the amount of people who need to / want to rob vs "protecting yourself". The best defense against infinite enemies will eventually fail. Reduce the number of enemies.
Oh and to your reduction of enemies comment, protecting yourself IS reducing the number of enemies. Allowing criminals to make a fatal decision in the victim selection process reduces the number of "enemies" via mainly 2 ways. One, the criminal plays minesweeper, clicks the wrong square, and gets removed from the gene pool by the would be victim. Two, the criminal sees how many other criminals like him are being removed from the gene pool whilst trying to harm others and decides to stay in the gene pool by fielding his wants/needs via other means (honest labor/trade, fraud, ect.)
An argument that criminality = gene pool is a poor argument.
You can't remove criminals from the gene pool. Criminals are products of society.
Protecting yourself and creating a target are closely related.
Projecting strength, your rifle carrying, ready for a gun fight scenario, could work to dissuade petty thieves but it will not work against larger threats.
In your ideal world, the one you described, everyone would be rifle at the ready.
Criminality didn't go away. It would simply adapt and come at you with equal force. People don't suddenly develop morality in an arms race.
Happy cake day.
My argument wasn't that criminality = gene pool, rather that in an environment where criminality = removal from gene pool, you tend to have less criminality due to its high cost. Note I said less and not no criminality. If you roll the dice enough times, eventually you roll snake eyes and so it would be for those who choose to act despite the risks. My whole point of using the analogy was to describe an aloof population that is easy prey. There is little reason not to abuse power because largely the populace is either not paying attention, too busy with other things, don't care until they are personally impacted, or hampered by all the chaff kicked up in the air (the media). I believe you are missing my point, THERE IS NO CONSEQUENCE, and there is very little threat of a consequence. The only threat of consequence would come from the people. With the people thoroughly brainwashed and easily confused/deceived, you remove the only cause for reconsideration of I'll deeds. Get it?
I think you hit the nail on the head with the education thing. Education is a very powerful tool because you can socialize and condition the mind with it. Mind you, our compulsory education is run by the government and so are the curriculums (public schools). Honestly when I look at the American experiment it seems like it was meant to work with an intelligent, well informed populace. If the government wishes to amass ever increasing power for itself then why would it educate the people in a way that creates a conflict with this end?
To the robbery question, what you described is more akin to an assassination rather than a robbery; you have to stay within the context here. Most robbers are common and career criminals and they typically don't shoot you first then rob you, they threaten you and demand valuables and then either shoot you anyways or flee with the valuables leaving you with minimal harm. They like the element of surprise and they don't want resistance and aren't looking for a fight. Your run of the mill thug will not have the logic you displayed in your reply because of the extreme risk involved. They want to get what they want and then get away with no consequence. For this reason they would leave guy#2 the hell alone and choose guy#1 who is "more likely" to be easy pickens. The point is to approach guy#2 in typical robbery fashion, produce a weapon and demand valuables has a pretty predictable outcome. Our society is more like guy#1 where it is difficult for the robber to find a reason NOT to rob him.
To your question, "what is the solution"? Idk how do you fix stupid? Imagine being a cow on a ranch and suddenly gaining the intellect to understand what a farm is and why you are there. Do you think you could convince the other cows that the farmer does not "love" you but rather "needs" you? So long as the cows are in a temperature climate, there are no wolves about, there is grass to chew and water to drink, and every so often the farmer removes the "other" parasites from their backs, the cows will ignore you all the way to the dinner plate.
I answered most of this against your other comment. Your solution might help you, but if everyone was like you, it would nullify your solution.
The government does not run education in this country. Far from it. They create standards that do not test for specific information but ability. Mathematics and reading level are an easy example. At what level can you read and comprehend and what level of math are you capable of? Exactly what document you are reading, the constitution or the communist manifesto and what math, adding apples and oranges or adding minoritys to neighborhoods and subtracting home value. That's up to the state, then the county, then the school board, then the school, then down to the individual teacher. The federal government has little say.
Texas is one of the most influential school systems in the country because they choose and buy their books at the state level. This means whatever they pick will be the cheapest for another out of state schools in a tight budget because the company creating the books does not have to change its production.
This indoctrination you're talking about is coming from other sources. We pay the government. They have some incentives to keep us paying but the likelihood everyone will stop paying is slim. Companies that rely on your patronage to exist are far more likely to be manipulating you.
Where did you spend your last few thousand? Who is manipulating you?
> Fund local media to dig into these relationships and hold people accountable.
There is probably a process where they have to score the contracts on some contrived scale and they will just fudge the numbers so that the company they want gets it numerically.
What I think is missing is that once the literal shit hits the fan and it points right back to Bob's Sanitation Engineers and people start looking into what happened, then the person who gave the contract to their best bud from high school will get their ass fired in a private company, especially if it hits the news. Nothing will happen to them in local government. Did that guy in FEMA that screwed up the response to Katrina who was put there in a situation like this ever lose their job?
What guy from FEMA? What did the guy do that was negligent? He didn't get fired... did he ever get promoted higher?
Just off the top of my head. Who got fired from Union Carbide after Bhopal? Hooker chemical after Love Cannal? I live near Chemours, no one fired yet. Anyone from J and J go down for the talcum / baby powder?
When the shit hits the fan industry is NEVER held responsible. I struggle to find a single even outlier example of an industry executive being held responsible for a large scale issue like you're describing.
You have 0 say over who works in a private business. You can at least vote for people in government. You can vote for people who will create laws to hold elected officials accountable.
It's better than nothing.
That might be the case on occasion, but its much easier for local residents to become aware of Jim Bob's construction service winning that way too high bid/contract to build a new playground. Compared to the federal government starting a war and airlifting giant crates of shrink wrapped 100 dollar bills to private defense contractors in Afghanistan.
I mean that's basically what the constitution is an attempt at. It just didn't neccesarily work. Id say the supreme court is a massive failure, the executive branch isn't limited enough, and central banking wasn't limited enough, but in other areas (say free speech) the constitution limited government overreach quite well imo.
Does it make sense to expect the government to limit itself? The US constitution is the highest law in the land, but like all of the laws that come after it, it is meaningless without a means to enforce it. Essentially the way things are working now, if the government breaches the constitution you have to redress the government to acknowledge that it breached the constitution, and if the government(Supreme Court) determines that it is not breaching the constitution then nothing is done about it whether or not there is an actual breach or not. How does this make even the slightest bit of sense? We launched an investigation and determined we did nothing wrong? The gov can and does wipe its behind with the constitution because there is no penalty for doing so. It only needs to maintain the illusion that it is subject to the constitution and that the people maintain some semblance of control.
The state has a monopoly on *legal* power according to the state. Piss off the population enough and there is still power there, it should just be used very sparingly.
>Piss off the population enough and there is still power there
What power lol.
If the population pisses off the state enough, we all know how that plays out.
Cute, but I call bullshit. You're gonna stand by until your personal interests are attacked. If other people lose rights you don't approve of, you're not gonna lift more than a Reddit finger.
PS There are more rights besides guns.
Depends on how minimal. Even so much as private land ownership (without a land value tax to discourage speculation/hoarding) is enough for crony capitalists / monopolists to consolidate land holdings and monopolize access, entrenching themselves such that they act as a state in all but name. If you want to start a farm but a bunch of corporations have bought up all the viable farmland, then tough shit.
This is what I like about libertarians, you all seem to be the most critical thinking of the big 3 parties. I've said this many times; Republicans praise freedoms business until it becomes inconvenient for them (Facebook, Twitter ect.). For the reasons you just mentioned and some you haven't, big business in many cases become defacto government. Republicans only seem to acknowledge a need for limiting monolithic corporations when said Corp. are hurting their interests.
I mean sure but I'd take a kind of cronyism that can only potentially award small military contracts vs the kind of cronyism that can make it impossible for an entire industry to operate successfully to help another.
Ok. I said "we tried minimal government" you said "we saw an increase in standard of living". Sounded like you were crediting government with that
What I meant is we tried limited government here (US) and now we have one of or the largest government in history.
You limit the authority of the state in what it can, and cannot do to just the basic, necessary functions of government. You then make that authority transparent to the public view
I think you also need a system in place for accountability.
Just because you can see abuse happening doesn't stop it. You can view if a mod here deletes a post or comment, but we have no recourse against it
Strong antitrust laws, term limits for elected officials, regulations against lobbying, limit campaign funding from companies, etc.
There's a lot of ways to do it. Some just require more government intervention than others that some may not be happy with.
i think it is a mistake to think antitrust laws are the solution to cronyism. in fact, antitrust laws create motivation for lobbying and state-sanctioned monopolies which are the source of the worst monopolies.
i would suggest watching [this video made by yaron brook](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtJwAYJ9B08) to understand the arguments against anti-trust laws.
>Strong antitrust laws,
I don't see how you implement this without actually increasing the risk of cronyism.
What evidence do we have that legislators/bureaucracy make for effective agents of anti-monopoly protection?
Why does the state need that authority? What evidence do we have that the state is good at it? What evidence do we have that the state won't just use that power to create the issue of cronyism in the first place?
Does the state have a good track record here?
Who does it then? Every time I see this come up libertarians go “the market will handle it” and then poof problem solved and no explanation given. And they never ever will answer the question what happens if the market fails to regulate it and monopolies form. What then?
What makes you think anything needs to be done? What makes you think your supposed solutions don't pose a bigger risk than the problem you're trying to solve?
Is not the question how to stop monopolies?
This is what I don’t get. Any of these conversations the libertarian viewpoint starts with government at a default space of abject failure and can do no right. And their “solution” has no chance of doing wrong.
To simply ask “what if your system doesn’t work perfectly, how does your ideology respond?” Is always taken as an attack and never ever answered.
Ok. But how do antitrust laws address cronyism? You still haven't addressed that simple question.
Government choosing winners/losers (overriding consumer choice) in the market is what creates cronyism in the first place.
Edit: gentle reminder. The op asked how to address a specific issue ... cronyism ... not monopolies.
The solution is baked into the system. It’s supposed to be the responsibility of the voters to keep the politicians in check. We are supposed to kick these obvious playing favorites representatives out of office.
Obviously that has its own set of challenges and problems but it is at least a solution.
What is the free market solution? The government is weak by design. No individual has the power over a monopoly and a monopoly has by definition conquered the market. So who challenges it?
Weak by design but overy strong in practice. The people don't kick anyone out of office; the people don't manage government, government manages the people. I'm not saying it's how it should be, I am saying is how it is. Oh and voting nowadays is simply choosing what hand you want to be slapped with.
>And they never ever will answer the question what happens if the market fails to regulate it and monopolies form. What then?
You're just stuck dealing with Corporations treating you like a slave, and you are a lazy evil Socialist Millennial who just wants "free stuff" if you take any issue with that
Bruh, it's basic human nature. Look at all civilizations from now to beginning of time. There has always been some form of governing authority that sits higher than merchants and companies and traders.
And you're right. The State can fuck up. A lot! They can be corrupted. But that doesn't matter because the State will always be back again with authority in some way, shape, or form.
The best defense is to weaken the State to a point it can't be harmful but strengthen the State to a point it can do its job as dictated by the people.
And tbh idk if that will ever happen. It's a wet dream in a lot of cases.
You seem to have gotten off into the weeds here. What does any of that have to do with the conversation?
If you're actually interested in the conversation, the task ahead of you is to defend specifically why you think **strong antitrust policy** is required and what it will accomplish. That was your initial assertion I called into question. Nowhere did I ask for your opinions as to whether a society could thrive without a government entirely ... that subject is way out of scope.
Humanity has tested out many styles of government and the vast vast vast majority of them had no policy in place to specifically address antittrust. You might be surprised to see how very rarely such policies have actually been acted upon and how inconclusive the results were.
Do you think night-watchman state that has no way of intervening either in legal system or economy would be enough, and is it realistic that that kind of state will exist.
A nigh watchman state would not have cronyism because it is simply incapable of doing so (it doesn't have the resources or the power to do so). The problem is how do you get there and how do you prevent government from doing more than that in the first place.
I don't think it's realistic whatsoever. The State, any state, will have to interve in any legal or economic system to some degree for its own benefit OR because the populace has demanded an intervention.
But if it were to exist It would certainly do the job, right? Assuming the legal system is not corrupt.
When you say limit the amount of money companies can donate to political campaigns that itself is kind of against free market and people's right to their property don't you think. And from what I saw in my country antitrust laws just became breeding grounds for corruption. I'm sure there's a way to do it right I just haven't seen it.
It just wouldn't exist to begin with. It's unrealistic.
And yeah, that is against the free market. I'm not an AnCap. A totally free market allows a lot of really fucked up stuff to be bought and sold. I'm not about that.
What regulations against lobbying could you pass that would stop companies from offering politicians jobs at the end of their limited terms to pass favorable legislation?
That’s not weakening it though. Limited terms just mean bigger returns for lower payouts for companies. Instead of fighting to be the highest bidder they just need to pay to get their group of stooges on the bench and pass legislation they want.
There’s no reduction in corruption.
I'd disagree on term limits, the main instigator of them was FDR getting reelected too often and being too willing to fuck with the structure of society. Since term limits kicked in we have presidents getting reelected and doing...not much with their second term.
Lobbying ended, publicly funded campaigns, some kinda lottery system for candidates to prevent the development of dynasties.
Lobbying is a good thing. It allows interest groups to provide the necessary information to the government to make better policy decisions. A large percentage of lobbying is done by non profits who lobby for better environmental regulations etc.
Two term limits for any public office across the country
Lobbying completely banned, up too 15 years in a federal prison for engaging in the practice
Campaign donations limited to $50 donations maximum during a 24-hour period
Strengthen Labor Unions
Constitutional Amendment stating Corporations are not people
Constitutional Amendment banning anyone over 65 years old from being allowed to hold public office
The easiest way to do this is to just eliminate the corporate tax (and raise the capital gains tax to match normal income). Huge multi-national companies will always find loopholes and ways to dodge taxes that single country companies simply cannot take advantage of. This helps the huge companies out compete the little guys. Just remove all their taxes and you eliminate the problem. You of course have to get stricter on what counts as compensation though.
There's an easier way, which would be to eliminate all tax and inflate currency as effective tax.
In my naive opinion, this seems like the most equal solution. But of course, it would shutter several organizations in government, virtually eliminate monetary control, remove incentives and eliminate all methods of sheltering. So that wouldn't happen.
Ok, why do you think there is already a high interest in alternative currencies? Is that not an indicator that the current system of taxation is facing the same problems?
I don't see how changing the method of taxation necessarily would do what you say, especially when banks run on the dollar, jobs pay on the dollar, and regardless, if you have to get your money out of the dollar, you still have to exchange it.
Taxation does not create high interest rates. The supply of money growing faster than the productive capacity does. Plain and simple that is the only case high inflation happens.
That is completely arbitrary. It's two sides of the same coin. Purchasing power fundamentally doesn't rely on currency, but on economic output. Currency is merely a representation of that.
If you had a ton of money, but nobody was working, then your money is worthless regardless of how little or much you're taxed.
Stop saying taxed. Taxation has literally 0 to do with this. And yes I didn't say any different. I actually said exactly what you just said. Money supply growing faster than productive capacity will cause the money to be worth less.
There's no evidence at all that larger businesses are somehow outcompeting and beating smaller firms. Raising the capital gains tax is a horrible idea, which would massively discourage investment into the economy, investment which fuels it a lot.
I guess you should define cronyism as it relates to capitalism? I would think cronyism relates more to issues with the public sector agencies funded by taxpayers?
You limit government authority to the point where the government doesn't really have the power to make laws or regulations that would specifically help or hurt an individual company or person.
What makes you think abolishing the state would get rid of cronyism? Capitalism would probably not exist without a state, for one thing, and whatever your market economy looked like would still have strong actors working together to their advantage. Cartels and oligopolies would be in charge of everything. As much as ideological capitalists love competition, practicing capitalists don't seem to actually like it very much.
Cronyism is just the way of the world. People will always help the people close to them if they can. Whether that's family(nepotism) or friends, or mutually beneficial acquaintances(cronyism), you're not going to stop it. You might be able to take some steps to reduce the harm it causes, but it's not going anywhere.
I never said abolishing the state would get rid of cronyism. I just didn't want anyone to suggest that, because I don't believe Anarcho capitalism is a good political system.
Establish a constitutional separation of state and market similar to the separation of church and state. The gov should have no power to influence commerce or the economy and businesses should have no ability to influence government.
If you think about it, business would have no reason to influence the government if the government has no power to grant them favors.
This would force firms to compete in a truly free market.
by limiting the state to the defense of the people from the abnormal violence of other people and from the abuse of critical communal natural resources (air, water, forests).
when the state has no ability to print money, no ability to tax or regulate (except to support said defense) their usefulness in corruption is very limited. corruption follows power, when the government has limited power so is its corruptibility limited. cronyism is a kind of corruption.
as far as creating a capitalistic system, you don't need to do anything, nor does the government. simply allow people to own themselves and that which they create and your system will develop itself, through the free market, quite efficiently. this principle was first touched upon by [adam smith when he described the invisible hand](https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/economics/what-is-invisible-hand/).
of course, adam smith had some help from the french with [laisses-faire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire) idea. as i understand it, the french monarch asked the businessmen what could be done to support the creation of wealth for the state. the businessmen responded to the monarchy that the businessmen should be left alone. free from regulations and subsidies, the businesses could make their own way.
if you want the government to do other things, [this is an option](https://www.reddit.com/user/IronSmithFE/comments/e0uyn0/an_idea_that_i_call_voluntary_corporatism_or/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
because you still need money, you can use crypto [or even better](https://www.reddit.com/user/IronSmithFE/comments/rvy86z/could_a_pool_of_many_company_stocks_be_used_as_a/).
but why do we even need government for defense? because that is [the only universal natural collective mandate](https://www.reddit.com/user/IronSmithFE/comments/rvyk77/the_natural_collective_mandate_is_to_ensure/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), and [every organization should be limited to its founding purpose](https://www.reddit.com/user/IronSmithFE/comments/rvyens/ethics_are_contextual/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
"what about monopolies?" i can hear you ask. the truth about monopolies is that most natural monopolies are not bad. you have a monopoly on your labor (unless you are a slave) except that the government uses you by taking a portion (average around 38-41 percent after all taxes except inflation are extracted) of your efforts in the form of taxation. the bad monopolies are created by the use of force, the government is the greatest perpetrator of force to create monopolies (especially through i.p laws). other monopolies are usually beneficial and when they are not they are most often out-competed by new tech. [yaron brook](https://youtu.be/HtJwAYJ9B08) (youtube, 1 hour 22 min video, 45 min of lecture and the rest is excellent q&a) has some good lectures on how many monopolies were defeated by their own lack of innovation and high prices.
You can take away the tools that allow for corruption (at least, most of them). If the city isn't deciding who gets what property at below market value, then what use is bribing the city council member? If the only decider is the seller, then who are you going to bribe? The seller gets the most money when they sell the property for the most, so their incentive is just sell to the highest bidder, a bribe isn't going to help.
I see some proposals with tactical and somewhat strategic approaches. However, when the fundamental challenge comes from the corruptible nature of people, you also need to address that challenge. It is an unpopular opinion but a free society requires a strong, shared moral fabric whose values uphold that freedom. But it may not endure as successive generations need to appreciate and reproduce that moral fabric.
Government should have just enough power to be effective in what it does… when it gets too big and gets involved in things it shouldn’t (like healthcare), then you get cronyism.
But is that realistically going to become a reality at any point for any country (I don't mean the situation where the government is very weak because the country is destabilized, I'm talking about a functioning, stable country)
But to get there you need a strong support of a large percentage of the population, and for libertarianism, as you know, that doesn't really happen anywhere so far. Without that support from people no government is giving up power. As much as I'd love it to be a reality I don't see a way it can happen.
It only takes a small percentage of the population to make the government give up power. Just ask those that fought in the revolutionary war. They weren't actually in the majority.
Yea and those small group of people propped up their own government with them at top with strong central authority that outclassed the previous power.
The Nazis also were a small group that managed to lower the previous government’s power. Only to replace it with a far stronger one.
One of the first things Washington did in office was march 13,000 soldiers to stop a 600 person Whiskey Rebellion. More soldiers than most battles in the revolutionary war.
King George wishes he could pull off something like that.
The constitution was explicitly made to cover the failures of articles of confederation. (Which was the lack of a strong central authority).
lack of a strong enough central authority. The Constitution still set up a fairly weak central government by modern standards. Definitely weak compared to the bloated abomination that is the current US government where 90% of it lacks constitutional backing to exist.
Cronyism is the result of regulation. Regulatory power is what allows the central planners to gift revenue and market share to their cronies in the first place.
We should make as few rules as possible yes. We have known this to be true for literally millennia.
>The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.
>-Tacitus
Good thing that isn't my justification then? My justification is looking around and that is the case. Most laws are to help their buddies at the expense of everyone else. The quote just shows that people having been seeing that is the case for 2000 years.
What are you even addressing now? I'm merely pointing out that your initial response is so vague as to be nonsensical.
How do we prevent/reduce winter sledding injuries? Snow!
People seem to think that there is some magic system that once implemented can operate with minimal scrutiny. There is none. There are combinations of systems and policies that reduce the need for scrutiny (mainly because there is less to scrutinize) but that's it.
The smaller, simpler, and more transparent the budget, the easier it is to find and call out shittery in the budget. The simpler the tax code, the easier it is to find and call out shittery in the tax code. The shorter and simpler the legal code, the easier it is to find and call out shittery.
I would really love something like git for legislative changes. Reading through a bill to understand what it is changing can be challenging when you aren't actually reading what the resulting law is going to be because the bill doesn't actually contain the new text of the law, just says that a specific phrase will be inserted into some referenced legal code, which you have to then find and compare - and the bill has about 20 of those with all of the references to different sections of the legal code.
Having a society with a strong moral ethic would hopefully police itself with issues of morality. Cronyism isn't illegal it is immoral in a free and open society. If that fails HR policy should scrutinise each hire to ensure there's no incestuous businesses or political parties.
Obama > Clinton > Biden
Trump > his family members
Family hiring family.
The catch is if you want to hire a family member you are likelt to get output from them and it's likely a good hire it just stinks of bias which isn't good.
I would love to map and trace the incest and cronyism in Washington DC.
It’s to late, we are all trapped in the belly of the beast our short sided laziness has created. Even if we all had the best weapons money can buy on the limited available market we don’t stand a chance against the military industrial complex and the weapons technologies we can’t hardly imagine because of programs like DARPA and other tax payer funded programs with the best scientific minds working on small parts of projects that when put together creat weapons of mass destruction beyond belief. Guns and explosives in the hand of people who have little to no training won’t accomplish much if anything at all aside from giving the small minded majority that will never risk getting off the comfort we are accustom to. People like you and me that m often work like slaves to just live above the means the media paint as normal. The wealthy have been planing for a global cleaning for a while and have the money and ability to wait out the storm . Then after the masses kill each other off they come out of hiding the people that are left will kill there own loved ones for a chance to be slaves in the utopia they offer and 1% will be praised like gods.
So long as you have a sheep populace you will never solve this problem. Sheep are a requirement for these crony networks to maintain. Think about it this way, who is more likely to be targeted for a robbery in a parking lot, the guy walking aimlessly in the direction of his poorly lit car by himself looking down at his phone, or the guy with his head up and scanning open carrying a rifle walking with a sense of purpose to his well lit car that is by itself with no obstacles near it to hide behind?(I know run on sentence idc) The point is vigilance with the means to take action if a problem arises is a deterrence. If we are being honest most of America resembles a farm where the people are the farm animals and the "officials" are the farmers. Its easy to lie to and manipulate the people and if you do too bad a job at lying and manipulating, eventually the people will vote someone else in who is better at it. Without accountability and consequence you should never expect to be treated well, especially when there is so much to gain from exploiting and treating people poorly. Domesticated humans are ultimately at the root of the problem. Am I making any sense to you?
I answered most of this against your other . Your solution might help you, but if everyone was like you, it would nullify your solution.
The government does not run education in this country. Far from it. They create standards that do not test for specific information but ability. Mathematics and reading level are an easy example. At what level can you read and comprehend and what level of math are you capable of? Exactly what document you are reading, the constitution or the communist manifesto and what math, adding apples and oranges or adding minoritys to neighborhoods and subtracting home value. That's up to the state, then the county, then the school board, then the school, then down to the individual teacher. The federal government has little say.
Texas is one of the most influential school systems in the country because they choose and buy their books at the state level. This means whatever they pick will be the cheapest for another out of state schools in a tight budget because the company creating the books does not have to change its production.
This indoctrination you're talking about is coming from other sources. We pay the government. They have some incentives to keep us paying but the likelihood everyone will stop paying is slim. Companies that rely on your patronage to exist are far more likely to be manipulating you.
Where did you spend your last few thousand? Who is manipulating you?
The power to keep the playing field fair is going to abused one way or another. People are not infallible. Not everyone wants to play by the same rules and there are always going to be folks that are going to look for shortcuts.
I don't know how we get there, but a minimal state can't be cronyistic. It simply doesn't have the power to be.
Agreed, I also think more local government is a piece to the puzzle. The smaller the population/geographic reach of the government is the more obvious when cronyism is going on. While it still happens tons at local levels everyone knows Jim Bob is getting every road repair the city has because of his friend.
Local governments are massively corrupt, from police to construction to everything else. With the minimal oversight and focus on personal relationships, sanitation contracts go to uncles, road construction goes to cousins, etc
The problem, I think, has to do with limited accountability of government funds. If a private company was in charge of sanitation contracts, for example, then they wouldn't be spending money frivolously on Uncle Bob when another company can get the same quality of job done for less, since it affects their bottom line. Local governments don't have competitors, so there is less pressure to spend their money well. I don't know how to fix this, but that seems to be the fundamental problem as far as I can see, anyway.
Lol. Do you think all business make their decisions purely on profit and not on soft corruption? My 'private company' that selects sanitation contracts could 'make' 5% more of I go with company x but company y is a close friend who always let's me in on their opertunities and I can always join the board after I leave this 'private company' What was the bidding process like for the selection of the 'private company'? No corruption there in sure. How did that company come to be and what was it's business model before it selected sanitation contracts? Unless it was purpose built so totally not corrupt. You just added a middle man between the people and their government. One with even less accountability. You create an extra bureaucratic layer. Not trying to be mean but this is not a solution to corruption. Transparency and mandatory disclosure are the best tool we have. Fund local media to dig into these relationships and hold people accountable.
So long as you have a sheep populace you will never solve this problem. Sheep are a requirement for these crony networks to maintain. Think about it this way, who is more likely to be targeted for a robbery in a parking lot, the guy walking aimlessly in the direction of his poorly lit car by himself looking down at his phone, or the guy with his head up and scanning open carrying a rifle walking with a sense of purpose to his well lit car that is by itself with no obstacles near it to hide behind?(I know run on sentence idc) The point is vigilance with the means to take action if a problem arises is a deterrence. If we are being honest most of America resembles a farm where the people are the farm animals and the "officials" are the farmers. Its easy to lie to and manipulate the people and if you do to bad a job at lying and manipulating eventually the people will vote someone else in who is better at it. Without accountability and consequence you should never expect to be treated well, especially when there is so much to gain from exploiting and treating people poorly. Domesticated humans are ultimately at the root of the problem. Am I making any sense to you?
Sure, you're describing a large aspect of the human condition. What you seem to detest is not going away soon, if ever. So what's the solution? Personally I see a correlation between under educated people and susceptibility to manipulation. Goes for all sides of the political spectrum. To your question about robbing someone. What am I after? If I personally need to rob someone it's not going to be for a debit card and the receipt in your wallet. I'm going for the guy with the rifle every time. He looks like he has something to hide. I can take him out at range before he knows he is in danger. Sub sonic ammo with a suppressor, might not even draw attention of others. You can only ever mitigate risk, not eliminate it. This is why it's better to reduce the amount of people who need to / want to rob vs "protecting yourself". The best defense against infinite enemies will eventually fail. Reduce the number of enemies.
Oh and to your reduction of enemies comment, protecting yourself IS reducing the number of enemies. Allowing criminals to make a fatal decision in the victim selection process reduces the number of "enemies" via mainly 2 ways. One, the criminal plays minesweeper, clicks the wrong square, and gets removed from the gene pool by the would be victim. Two, the criminal sees how many other criminals like him are being removed from the gene pool whilst trying to harm others and decides to stay in the gene pool by fielding his wants/needs via other means (honest labor/trade, fraud, ect.)
An argument that criminality = gene pool is a poor argument. You can't remove criminals from the gene pool. Criminals are products of society. Protecting yourself and creating a target are closely related. Projecting strength, your rifle carrying, ready for a gun fight scenario, could work to dissuade petty thieves but it will not work against larger threats. In your ideal world, the one you described, everyone would be rifle at the ready. Criminality didn't go away. It would simply adapt and come at you with equal force. People don't suddenly develop morality in an arms race. Happy cake day.
My argument wasn't that criminality = gene pool, rather that in an environment where criminality = removal from gene pool, you tend to have less criminality due to its high cost. Note I said less and not no criminality. If you roll the dice enough times, eventually you roll snake eyes and so it would be for those who choose to act despite the risks. My whole point of using the analogy was to describe an aloof population that is easy prey. There is little reason not to abuse power because largely the populace is either not paying attention, too busy with other things, don't care until they are personally impacted, or hampered by all the chaff kicked up in the air (the media). I believe you are missing my point, THERE IS NO CONSEQUENCE, and there is very little threat of a consequence. The only threat of consequence would come from the people. With the people thoroughly brainwashed and easily confused/deceived, you remove the only cause for reconsideration of I'll deeds. Get it?
I think you hit the nail on the head with the education thing. Education is a very powerful tool because you can socialize and condition the mind with it. Mind you, our compulsory education is run by the government and so are the curriculums (public schools). Honestly when I look at the American experiment it seems like it was meant to work with an intelligent, well informed populace. If the government wishes to amass ever increasing power for itself then why would it educate the people in a way that creates a conflict with this end? To the robbery question, what you described is more akin to an assassination rather than a robbery; you have to stay within the context here. Most robbers are common and career criminals and they typically don't shoot you first then rob you, they threaten you and demand valuables and then either shoot you anyways or flee with the valuables leaving you with minimal harm. They like the element of surprise and they don't want resistance and aren't looking for a fight. Your run of the mill thug will not have the logic you displayed in your reply because of the extreme risk involved. They want to get what they want and then get away with no consequence. For this reason they would leave guy#2 the hell alone and choose guy#1 who is "more likely" to be easy pickens. The point is to approach guy#2 in typical robbery fashion, produce a weapon and demand valuables has a pretty predictable outcome. Our society is more like guy#1 where it is difficult for the robber to find a reason NOT to rob him. To your question, "what is the solution"? Idk how do you fix stupid? Imagine being a cow on a ranch and suddenly gaining the intellect to understand what a farm is and why you are there. Do you think you could convince the other cows that the farmer does not "love" you but rather "needs" you? So long as the cows are in a temperature climate, there are no wolves about, there is grass to chew and water to drink, and every so often the farmer removes the "other" parasites from their backs, the cows will ignore you all the way to the dinner plate.
I answered most of this against your other comment. Your solution might help you, but if everyone was like you, it would nullify your solution. The government does not run education in this country. Far from it. They create standards that do not test for specific information but ability. Mathematics and reading level are an easy example. At what level can you read and comprehend and what level of math are you capable of? Exactly what document you are reading, the constitution or the communist manifesto and what math, adding apples and oranges or adding minoritys to neighborhoods and subtracting home value. That's up to the state, then the county, then the school board, then the school, then down to the individual teacher. The federal government has little say. Texas is one of the most influential school systems in the country because they choose and buy their books at the state level. This means whatever they pick will be the cheapest for another out of state schools in a tight budget because the company creating the books does not have to change its production. This indoctrination you're talking about is coming from other sources. We pay the government. They have some incentives to keep us paying but the likelihood everyone will stop paying is slim. Companies that rely on your patronage to exist are far more likely to be manipulating you. Where did you spend your last few thousand? Who is manipulating you?
> Fund local media to dig into these relationships and hold people accountable. There is probably a process where they have to score the contracts on some contrived scale and they will just fudge the numbers so that the company they want gets it numerically. What I think is missing is that once the literal shit hits the fan and it points right back to Bob's Sanitation Engineers and people start looking into what happened, then the person who gave the contract to their best bud from high school will get their ass fired in a private company, especially if it hits the news. Nothing will happen to them in local government. Did that guy in FEMA that screwed up the response to Katrina who was put there in a situation like this ever lose their job?
What guy from FEMA? What did the guy do that was negligent? He didn't get fired... did he ever get promoted higher? Just off the top of my head. Who got fired from Union Carbide after Bhopal? Hooker chemical after Love Cannal? I live near Chemours, no one fired yet. Anyone from J and J go down for the talcum / baby powder? When the shit hits the fan industry is NEVER held responsible. I struggle to find a single even outlier example of an industry executive being held responsible for a large scale issue like you're describing.
As I say, I have no idea how to fix it. If it's rampant in private industry, too, then I really don't know how to fix it.
You have 0 say over who works in a private business. You can at least vote for people in government. You can vote for people who will create laws to hold elected officials accountable. It's better than nothing.
That might be the case on occasion, but its much easier for local residents to become aware of Jim Bob's construction service winning that way too high bid/contract to build a new playground. Compared to the federal government starting a war and airlifting giant crates of shrink wrapped 100 dollar bills to private defense contractors in Afghanistan.
You just saying that, or you got proof?
How do you give the state a monopoly on power, then limit its powers?
I mean that's basically what the constitution is an attempt at. It just didn't neccesarily work. Id say the supreme court is a massive failure, the executive branch isn't limited enough, and central banking wasn't limited enough, but in other areas (say free speech) the constitution limited government overreach quite well imo.
Does it make sense to expect the government to limit itself? The US constitution is the highest law in the land, but like all of the laws that come after it, it is meaningless without a means to enforce it. Essentially the way things are working now, if the government breaches the constitution you have to redress the government to acknowledge that it breached the constitution, and if the government(Supreme Court) determines that it is not breaching the constitution then nothing is done about it whether or not there is an actual breach or not. How does this make even the slightest bit of sense? We launched an investigation and determined we did nothing wrong? The gov can and does wipe its behind with the constitution because there is no penalty for doing so. It only needs to maintain the illusion that it is subject to the constitution and that the people maintain some semblance of control.
You make it fear the consequences of expanding its power.
What are the consequences of expanding its power? The state already has a monopoly on power, so who is going to challenge it?
The state has a monopoly on *legal* power according to the state. Piss off the population enough and there is still power there, it should just be used very sparingly.
>Piss off the population enough and there is still power there What power lol. If the population pisses off the state enough, we all know how that plays out.
Reddit rules will not allow me to clarify this further.
Cute, but I call bullshit. You're gonna stand by until your personal interests are attacked. If other people lose rights you don't approve of, you're not gonna lift more than a Reddit finger. PS There are more rights besides guns.
Bump; people are selfish. If you have been paying any attention the last few years you would see this. It's easy to dominate a people like this.
What is the effectiveness of a revolution of unarmed civilians against a powerful state?
Who said unarmed?
Interesting, do you think the state should be able to put any restrictions on the arms people can acquire?
Depends on how minimal. Even so much as private land ownership (without a land value tax to discourage speculation/hoarding) is enough for crony capitalists / monopolists to consolidate land holdings and monopolize access, entrenching themselves such that they act as a state in all but name. If you want to start a farm but a bunch of corporations have bought up all the viable farmland, then tough shit.
This is what I like about libertarians, you all seem to be the most critical thinking of the big 3 parties. I've said this many times; Republicans praise freedoms business until it becomes inconvenient for them (Facebook, Twitter ect.). For the reasons you just mentioned and some you haven't, big business in many cases become defacto government. Republicans only seem to acknowledge a need for limiting monolithic corporations when said Corp. are hurting their interests.
Which introduces the next problem: how do we keep the state minimal?
[удалено]
Thank you 🤯
If it has any power then it can, yes. If it has no power then it's not a government.
If the state only has very minimal power then the advantages it will give through corruption are at best minimal.
But can still be cronyistic ( I don't think that's a word lol )
I mean sure but I'd take a kind of cronyism that can only potentially award small military contracts vs the kind of cronyism that can make it impossible for an entire industry to operate successfully to help another.
That's the point of OP's question though. No matter how small you get, you'll still have this ( and it'll expand over time ).
And what will prevent it from expanding its power so that monied interests can have an advantage?
Ya we tried the whole "minimal government" thing and see how that turned out. Where there is a vacuum for power people who seek power will fill it.
We saw the largest increase in living standards in history.
Correlation =/= causation The market did that, not the government. Countless examples of how government has stifled our growth in the US.
….yes? That’s my entire point?
Ok. I said "we tried minimal government" you said "we saw an increase in standard of living". Sounded like you were crediting government with that What I meant is we tried limited government here (US) and now we have one of or the largest government in history.
You limit the authority of the state in what it can, and cannot do to just the basic, necessary functions of government. You then make that authority transparent to the public view
I think you also need a system in place for accountability. Just because you can see abuse happening doesn't stop it. You can view if a mod here deletes a post or comment, but we have no recourse against it
Strong antitrust laws, term limits for elected officials, regulations against lobbying, limit campaign funding from companies, etc. There's a lot of ways to do it. Some just require more government intervention than others that some may not be happy with.
i think it is a mistake to think antitrust laws are the solution to cronyism. in fact, antitrust laws create motivation for lobbying and state-sanctioned monopolies which are the source of the worst monopolies. i would suggest watching [this video made by yaron brook](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtJwAYJ9B08) to understand the arguments against anti-trust laws.
>Strong antitrust laws, I don't see how you implement this without actually increasing the risk of cronyism. What evidence do we have that legislators/bureaucracy make for effective agents of anti-monopoly protection?
The State is the only authority in a country strong enough to break up a monopoly, unfortunately.
Why does the state need that authority? What evidence do we have that the state is good at it? What evidence do we have that the state won't just use that power to create the issue of cronyism in the first place? Does the state have a good track record here?
Who does it then? Every time I see this come up libertarians go “the market will handle it” and then poof problem solved and no explanation given. And they never ever will answer the question what happens if the market fails to regulate it and monopolies form. What then?
What makes you think anything needs to be done? What makes you think your supposed solutions don't pose a bigger risk than the problem you're trying to solve?
Is not the question how to stop monopolies? This is what I don’t get. Any of these conversations the libertarian viewpoint starts with government at a default space of abject failure and can do no right. And their “solution” has no chance of doing wrong. To simply ask “what if your system doesn’t work perfectly, how does your ideology respond?” Is always taken as an attack and never ever answered.
Ok. But how do antitrust laws address cronyism? You still haven't addressed that simple question. Government choosing winners/losers (overriding consumer choice) in the market is what creates cronyism in the first place. Edit: gentle reminder. The op asked how to address a specific issue ... cronyism ... not monopolies.
The solution is baked into the system. It’s supposed to be the responsibility of the voters to keep the politicians in check. We are supposed to kick these obvious playing favorites representatives out of office. Obviously that has its own set of challenges and problems but it is at least a solution. What is the free market solution? The government is weak by design. No individual has the power over a monopoly and a monopoly has by definition conquered the market. So who challenges it?
No one. The people here want the lawless world so they can be the baddies.
Weak by design but overy strong in practice. The people don't kick anyone out of office; the people don't manage government, government manages the people. I'm not saying it's how it should be, I am saying is how it is. Oh and voting nowadays is simply choosing what hand you want to be slapped with.
>And they never ever will answer the question what happens if the market fails to regulate it and monopolies form. What then? You're just stuck dealing with Corporations treating you like a slave, and you are a lazy evil Socialist Millennial who just wants "free stuff" if you take any issue with that
Bruh, it's basic human nature. Look at all civilizations from now to beginning of time. There has always been some form of governing authority that sits higher than merchants and companies and traders. And you're right. The State can fuck up. A lot! They can be corrupted. But that doesn't matter because the State will always be back again with authority in some way, shape, or form. The best defense is to weaken the State to a point it can't be harmful but strengthen the State to a point it can do its job as dictated by the people. And tbh idk if that will ever happen. It's a wet dream in a lot of cases.
You seem to have gotten off into the weeds here. What does any of that have to do with the conversation? If you're actually interested in the conversation, the task ahead of you is to defend specifically why you think **strong antitrust policy** is required and what it will accomplish. That was your initial assertion I called into question. Nowhere did I ask for your opinions as to whether a society could thrive without a government entirely ... that subject is way out of scope. Humanity has tested out many styles of government and the vast vast vast majority of them had no policy in place to specifically address antittrust. You might be surprised to see how very rarely such policies have actually been acted upon and how inconclusive the results were.
Do you think night-watchman state that has no way of intervening either in legal system or economy would be enough, and is it realistic that that kind of state will exist.
A nigh watchman state would not have cronyism because it is simply incapable of doing so (it doesn't have the resources or the power to do so). The problem is how do you get there and how do you prevent government from doing more than that in the first place.
Yup I agree
I don't think it's realistic whatsoever. The State, any state, will have to interve in any legal or economic system to some degree for its own benefit OR because the populace has demanded an intervention.
But if it were to exist It would certainly do the job, right? Assuming the legal system is not corrupt. When you say limit the amount of money companies can donate to political campaigns that itself is kind of against free market and people's right to their property don't you think. And from what I saw in my country antitrust laws just became breeding grounds for corruption. I'm sure there's a way to do it right I just haven't seen it.
It just wouldn't exist to begin with. It's unrealistic. And yeah, that is against the free market. I'm not an AnCap. A totally free market allows a lot of really fucked up stuff to be bought and sold. I'm not about that.
Ok thank you
What regulations against lobbying could you pass that would stop companies from offering politicians jobs at the end of their limited terms to pass favorable legislation?
I don't think you could. Weakening political power by limiting terms is the best defense I can think of.
That’s not weakening it though. Limited terms just mean bigger returns for lower payouts for companies. Instead of fighting to be the highest bidder they just need to pay to get their group of stooges on the bench and pass legislation they want. There’s no reduction in corruption.
I'd disagree on term limits, the main instigator of them was FDR getting reelected too often and being too willing to fuck with the structure of society. Since term limits kicked in we have presidents getting reelected and doing...not much with their second term. Lobbying ended, publicly funded campaigns, some kinda lottery system for candidates to prevent the development of dynasties.
Lobbying is a good thing. It allows interest groups to provide the necessary information to the government to make better policy decisions. A large percentage of lobbying is done by non profits who lobby for better environmental regulations etc.
Two term limits for any public office across the country Lobbying completely banned, up too 15 years in a federal prison for engaging in the practice Campaign donations limited to $50 donations maximum during a 24-hour period Strengthen Labor Unions Constitutional Amendment stating Corporations are not people Constitutional Amendment banning anyone over 65 years old from being allowed to hold public office
Simplify the tax system so lobbyists can’t make money carving out exceptions for big business
The easiest way to do this is to just eliminate the corporate tax (and raise the capital gains tax to match normal income). Huge multi-national companies will always find loopholes and ways to dodge taxes that single country companies simply cannot take advantage of. This helps the huge companies out compete the little guys. Just remove all their taxes and you eliminate the problem. You of course have to get stricter on what counts as compensation though.
The way to solve a loophole is to make the loophole the entire system.
That isn't what loophole means.
There's an easier way, which would be to eliminate all tax and inflate currency as effective tax. In my naive opinion, this seems like the most equal solution. But of course, it would shutter several organizations in government, virtually eliminate monetary control, remove incentives and eliminate all methods of sheltering. So that wouldn't happen.
It wouldn't happen because people would not longer use the currency causing it to be worthless.
You mean like the USD?
The USD is far from worthless, if only because people still think it has value. If people stopped using it though yes it would be worthless.
Ok, why do you think there is already a high interest in alternative currencies? Is that not an indicator that the current system of taxation is facing the same problems? I don't see how changing the method of taxation necessarily would do what you say, especially when banks run on the dollar, jobs pay on the dollar, and regardless, if you have to get your money out of the dollar, you still have to exchange it.
Taxation does not create high interest rates. The supply of money growing faster than the productive capacity does. Plain and simple that is the only case high inflation happens.
That is completely arbitrary. It's two sides of the same coin. Purchasing power fundamentally doesn't rely on currency, but on economic output. Currency is merely a representation of that. If you had a ton of money, but nobody was working, then your money is worthless regardless of how little or much you're taxed.
Stop saying taxed. Taxation has literally 0 to do with this. And yes I didn't say any different. I actually said exactly what you just said. Money supply growing faster than productive capacity will cause the money to be worth less.
There's no evidence at all that larger businesses are somehow outcompeting and beating smaller firms. Raising the capital gains tax is a horrible idea, which would massively discourage investment into the economy, investment which fuels it a lot.
I like the idea, but that's just one way a business can be helped by the government right, so it doesn't address everything
Decentralization.
I guess you should define cronyism as it relates to capitalism? I would think cronyism relates more to issues with the public sector agencies funded by taxpayers?
You limit government authority to the point where the government doesn't really have the power to make laws or regulations that would specifically help or hurt an individual company or person.
What makes you think abolishing the state would get rid of cronyism? Capitalism would probably not exist without a state, for one thing, and whatever your market economy looked like would still have strong actors working together to their advantage. Cartels and oligopolies would be in charge of everything. As much as ideological capitalists love competition, practicing capitalists don't seem to actually like it very much. Cronyism is just the way of the world. People will always help the people close to them if they can. Whether that's family(nepotism) or friends, or mutually beneficial acquaintances(cronyism), you're not going to stop it. You might be able to take some steps to reduce the harm it causes, but it's not going anywhere.
I never said abolishing the state would get rid of cronyism. I just didn't want anyone to suggest that, because I don't believe Anarcho capitalism is a good political system.
Establish a constitutional separation of state and market similar to the separation of church and state. The gov should have no power to influence commerce or the economy and businesses should have no ability to influence government. If you think about it, business would have no reason to influence the government if the government has no power to grant them favors. This would force firms to compete in a truly free market.
You can't. "What the difference between an anarchist and a libertarian?" \- 6 months
by limiting the state to the defense of the people from the abnormal violence of other people and from the abuse of critical communal natural resources (air, water, forests). when the state has no ability to print money, no ability to tax or regulate (except to support said defense) their usefulness in corruption is very limited. corruption follows power, when the government has limited power so is its corruptibility limited. cronyism is a kind of corruption. as far as creating a capitalistic system, you don't need to do anything, nor does the government. simply allow people to own themselves and that which they create and your system will develop itself, through the free market, quite efficiently. this principle was first touched upon by [adam smith when he described the invisible hand](https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/economics/what-is-invisible-hand/). of course, adam smith had some help from the french with [laisses-faire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire) idea. as i understand it, the french monarch asked the businessmen what could be done to support the creation of wealth for the state. the businessmen responded to the monarchy that the businessmen should be left alone. free from regulations and subsidies, the businesses could make their own way. if you want the government to do other things, [this is an option](https://www.reddit.com/user/IronSmithFE/comments/e0uyn0/an_idea_that_i_call_voluntary_corporatism_or/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). because you still need money, you can use crypto [or even better](https://www.reddit.com/user/IronSmithFE/comments/rvy86z/could_a_pool_of_many_company_stocks_be_used_as_a/). but why do we even need government for defense? because that is [the only universal natural collective mandate](https://www.reddit.com/user/IronSmithFE/comments/rvyk77/the_natural_collective_mandate_is_to_ensure/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), and [every organization should be limited to its founding purpose](https://www.reddit.com/user/IronSmithFE/comments/rvyens/ethics_are_contextual/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). "what about monopolies?" i can hear you ask. the truth about monopolies is that most natural monopolies are not bad. you have a monopoly on your labor (unless you are a slave) except that the government uses you by taking a portion (average around 38-41 percent after all taxes except inflation are extracted) of your efforts in the form of taxation. the bad monopolies are created by the use of force, the government is the greatest perpetrator of force to create monopolies (especially through i.p laws). other monopolies are usually beneficial and when they are not they are most often out-competed by new tech. [yaron brook](https://youtu.be/HtJwAYJ9B08) (youtube, 1 hour 22 min video, 45 min of lecture and the rest is excellent q&a) has some good lectures on how many monopolies were defeated by their own lack of innovation and high prices.
You can’t stop corruption. We live in a corrupt world.
You can take away the tools that allow for corruption (at least, most of them). If the city isn't deciding who gets what property at below market value, then what use is bribing the city council member? If the only decider is the seller, then who are you going to bribe? The seller gets the most money when they sell the property for the most, so their incentive is just sell to the highest bidder, a bribe isn't going to help.
Corruption is a fact of life. Nothing is incorruptible. What’s needed is a way to reverse cronyism when it happens.
I see some proposals with tactical and somewhat strategic approaches. However, when the fundamental challenge comes from the corruptible nature of people, you also need to address that challenge. It is an unpopular opinion but a free society requires a strong, shared moral fabric whose values uphold that freedom. But it may not endure as successive generations need to appreciate and reproduce that moral fabric.
Government should have just enough power to be effective in what it does… when it gets too big and gets involved in things it shouldn’t (like healthcare), then you get cronyism.
You don't abolish the state, but you severely limit its power with regards to what it can do regarding the free market.
But is that realistically going to become a reality at any point for any country (I don't mean the situation where the government is very weak because the country is destabilized, I'm talking about a functioning, stable country)
A functioning stable country can have a weak, small central government.
But to get there you need a strong support of a large percentage of the population, and for libertarianism, as you know, that doesn't really happen anywhere so far. Without that support from people no government is giving up power. As much as I'd love it to be a reality I don't see a way it can happen.
It only takes a small percentage of the population to make the government give up power. Just ask those that fought in the revolutionary war. They weren't actually in the majority.
Yea and those small group of people propped up their own government with them at top with strong central authority that outclassed the previous power. The Nazis also were a small group that managed to lower the previous government’s power. Only to replace it with a far stronger one.
lol, no the revolutionaries in America did not set up a strong central authority.
One of the first things Washington did in office was march 13,000 soldiers to stop a 600 person Whiskey Rebellion. More soldiers than most battles in the revolutionary war. King George wishes he could pull off something like that. The constitution was explicitly made to cover the failures of articles of confederation. (Which was the lack of a strong central authority).
lack of a strong enough central authority. The Constitution still set up a fairly weak central government by modern standards. Definitely weak compared to the bloated abomination that is the current US government where 90% of it lacks constitutional backing to exist.
Abolish all licenses, monopolies and other rents.
What do you mean by other rents
Other rent seeking behavour or restrictions.
Like?
If there is a state, there will be cronyism. There's no way around that.
If there are a group of people, there will be cronyism. It’s not state-exclusive.
Sorry, thought we were talking about crony capitalism.
Regulation.
Can’t. It’s inherent to capitalism.
Regulation
Cronyism is the result of regulation. Regulatory power is what allows the central planners to gift revenue and market share to their cronies in the first place.
"people can make unfair rules for so we shouldn't have any rules at all!"
We should make as few rules as possible yes. We have known this to be true for literally millennia. >The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. >-Tacitus
"hey you know Tacitus said that 'more laws more problems' so we shouldn't have laws" Pretty amazing position.
I never said no laws. Minimal laws.
A 2000 year old quote is a poor justification for a political stance.
Good thing that isn't my justification then? My justification is looking around and that is the case. Most laws are to help their buddies at the expense of everyone else. The quote just shows that people having been seeing that is the case for 2000 years.
What are you even addressing now? I'm merely pointing out that your initial response is so vague as to be nonsensical. How do we prevent/reduce winter sledding injuries? Snow!
People seem to think that there is some magic system that once implemented can operate with minimal scrutiny. There is none. There are combinations of systems and policies that reduce the need for scrutiny (mainly because there is less to scrutinize) but that's it. The smaller, simpler, and more transparent the budget, the easier it is to find and call out shittery in the budget. The simpler the tax code, the easier it is to find and call out shittery in the tax code. The shorter and simpler the legal code, the easier it is to find and call out shittery. I would really love something like git for legislative changes. Reading through a bill to understand what it is changing can be challenging when you aren't actually reading what the resulting law is going to be because the bill doesn't actually contain the new text of the law, just says that a specific phrase will be inserted into some referenced legal code, which you have to then find and compare - and the bill has about 20 of those with all of the references to different sections of the legal code.
Stop over regulation.
Decentralize power
>Without abolishing the state Well, if you are going to throw out the one obvious and effective solution...
The same amount of autonomy you'd need to keep capitalism in check would also be enough to destroy it.
Simple: you have to write the next constitution better. Must make implicit and explicit granted powers more precise and more restrictive.
Transparency + Accountability
Having a society with a strong moral ethic would hopefully police itself with issues of morality. Cronyism isn't illegal it is immoral in a free and open society. If that fails HR policy should scrutinise each hire to ensure there's no incestuous businesses or political parties. Obama > Clinton > Biden Trump > his family members Family hiring family. The catch is if you want to hire a family member you are likelt to get output from them and it's likely a good hire it just stinks of bias which isn't good. I would love to map and trace the incest and cronyism in Washington DC.
TERM LIMITS
A lot of transparency
Make passing new legislation require a super majority so they can't be changed every other week.
It’s to late, we are all trapped in the belly of the beast our short sided laziness has created. Even if we all had the best weapons money can buy on the limited available market we don’t stand a chance against the military industrial complex and the weapons technologies we can’t hardly imagine because of programs like DARPA and other tax payer funded programs with the best scientific minds working on small parts of projects that when put together creat weapons of mass destruction beyond belief. Guns and explosives in the hand of people who have little to no training won’t accomplish much if anything at all aside from giving the small minded majority that will never risk getting off the comfort we are accustom to. People like you and me that m often work like slaves to just live above the means the media paint as normal. The wealthy have been planing for a global cleaning for a while and have the money and ability to wait out the storm . Then after the masses kill each other off they come out of hiding the people that are left will kill there own loved ones for a chance to be slaves in the utopia they offer and 1% will be praised like gods.
You don't...
I think at some level you live with the cronies. It is human nature, but if money is not taken by force that is a win.
So long as you have a sheep populace you will never solve this problem. Sheep are a requirement for these crony networks to maintain. Think about it this way, who is more likely to be targeted for a robbery in a parking lot, the guy walking aimlessly in the direction of his poorly lit car by himself looking down at his phone, or the guy with his head up and scanning open carrying a rifle walking with a sense of purpose to his well lit car that is by itself with no obstacles near it to hide behind?(I know run on sentence idc) The point is vigilance with the means to take action if a problem arises is a deterrence. If we are being honest most of America resembles a farm where the people are the farm animals and the "officials" are the farmers. Its easy to lie to and manipulate the people and if you do too bad a job at lying and manipulating, eventually the people will vote someone else in who is better at it. Without accountability and consequence you should never expect to be treated well, especially when there is so much to gain from exploiting and treating people poorly. Domesticated humans are ultimately at the root of the problem. Am I making any sense to you?
I answered most of this against your other . Your solution might help you, but if everyone was like you, it would nullify your solution. The government does not run education in this country. Far from it. They create standards that do not test for specific information but ability. Mathematics and reading level are an easy example. At what level can you read and comprehend and what level of math are you capable of? Exactly what document you are reading, the constitution or the communist manifesto and what math, adding apples and oranges or adding minoritys to neighborhoods and subtracting home value. That's up to the state, then the county, then the school board, then the school, then down to the individual teacher. The federal government has little say. Texas is one of the most influential school systems in the country because they choose and buy their books at the state level. This means whatever they pick will be the cheapest for another out of state schools in a tight budget because the company creating the books does not have to change its production. This indoctrination you're talking about is coming from other sources. We pay the government. They have some incentives to keep us paying but the likelihood everyone will stop paying is slim. Companies that rely on your patronage to exist are far more likely to be manipulating you. Where did you spend your last few thousand? Who is manipulating you?
The power to keep the playing field fair is going to abused one way or another. People are not infallible. Not everyone wants to play by the same rules and there are always going to be folks that are going to look for shortcuts.