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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dan B. who wrote (14299)	12/3/2004 10:58:55 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20773

Let me see if I can cover these briefly. At the time the US constitution was created, most people were self employed business men. There certainly was nothing like today's mega corporation with revenues in excess of some GDPs and employees numbering in 6 digits. Therefore while they guarded against governmental tyranny, they did not think of guarding against private tyranny by proxy. In fact they encouraged economic freedom as a way to ensure personal freedom (and not the other way around as sometime it is postulated). I have almost no problems with economic freedoms so long as they stay in the economic domain. In fact, I don't believe corporations should be taxed at all. However, I also don't believe corporations should have any part in the policy making process, campaign contributions, or much of the legal protections their management enjoys. As an example, consider the case of a company that knowingly sells a product kills one in ten thousand consumers. The company decides that the risk rewards are worth it for the stubborn few victims who somehow manage to walk the legal maze for years and ultimately it can settle out of court cheaper. Now if per chance the corporation is caught red handed and its reckless conduct is proven, what is a fair punishment? As it stands to day, in those very rare cases that we can prove the charges, the most likely outcome is to fine the company. In other words, we take money out of the pockets of the shareholders who were most likely as uninformed about the reckless policy as the general public, while the management gets to enjoy the millions they made over the years. I think this is unjust. The fair punishment is to try those involved in the decision making process for deprived indifference to human life and put them in jail. I bet BOD members will think twice before approving reckless behavior. >> A Capitalist system such as the U.S. would scarcely be, and isn't now in practice, indifferent to the wants of others. The political system in the US feels only responsible for to American corporations. As such it feels justified in deploying US military and economic might to crush any threat to US corporations. As described in PNAC, US goal is to prevent creation of any entity that could challenge it. Many already feel threatened by EU and there are other large blocks in the works from Africa to SEA. Force begets force. If we don't learn to encourage creation of just international law, one way or another smaller nations will unite enough to get what they feel is theirs. The danger then is that without establishment of fair international laws and dispute resolution methods, if our fortunes change (as history tells us they do for every nation) then we will not like how a united Eurasia or the like treats us. This is why I said the window of opportunity is limited. ST