The cost of monoculture (Gen Kanai)

Posted Jan 27, 2007 16:45 UTC (Sat) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454)
In reply to: The cost of monoculture (Gen Kanai) by drag
Parent article: The cost of monoculture (Gen Kanai)

> No corporation has purposely controlled or accidently mismanaged the food
> supplies that caused millions of people to starve.

ROTFL, any student of European history (won't write about parts of the world I know little of, though I suspect it's pretty much the same thing) knows pretty much every single of its big famines was aggravated if not orchestrated by private interests hoarding food dumps to speculate on price (with the governments usually ending up confiscating them to avoid starvation riots)

> No corporation has ever sent millions of people to die in work camps in
> Siberia.

Also, I suggest you read one or two books of russian history (the official pre-1917 tsarist ones that were massively re-published in the 1990's).

They'll explain you how economic powers (aristocrats then industrialists) lobbied for centuries for serfdom and maintaining people in abject conditions in poor fields then factories to make more money (with many laments on the hard russian climate and the "economic necessity" of serfdom)

Then they'll tell you how the state expanded its borders by turning a blind eyes to people fleeing in Ukraine & Siberia the economic powers of the day (yes, it was that bad people were happy to flee to Siberia).

I don't like governments much but I have no illusion about what would happen if economic powers (named corporation nowadays) were freed from them. It's easy to point the finger to 20th century communist states but the great atrocities of previous centuries (new world conquest, colonization) have more often than not been perpetrated in areas where historic states were weak and power surrendered to private interests.

The cost of monoculture (Gen Kanai)

Posted Jan 28, 2007 12:43 UTC (Sun) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

""Also, I suggest you read one or two books of russian history (the official pre-1917 tsarist ones that were massively re-published in the 1990's).""

Good stuff. I bet russian history is a good one.

They'll be easy to find hopefully, or do they have a name so I know which ones your talking about?

""I don't like governments much but I have no illusion about what would happen if economic powers (named corporation nowadays) were freed from them. It's easy to point the finger to 20th century communist states but the great atrocities of previous centuries (new world conquest, colonization) have more often than not been perpetrated in areas where historic states were weak and power surrendered to private interests.""

I don't trust big corporations anymore then big governments. It's just currently their power is much more limited.

There are people like from the "Mises institute" http://www.mises.org/ that advocate just that (no government and only business). That a capitalist society, if properly setup, is essentially self-governing and that there is no need for structured government.

I don't agree with that at all.
(Although they have very interesting and valid points in some respects and are worth checking out.)

What is most horrible is when they combine forces.. When the government takes a active role in supporting economic success of big business over it's own subjects. You end up with a very strong form of fascism.

Personally I like a balance of power approach. Government and large corporations should be opposed to one another to a certain extent (but probably not in a combative manner). I beleive that individuals have the best ability to govern themselves. After all we are all humans and generally have barely enough good sense to rule ourselves... What makes us think that puting a couple thousand people in charge of a several hundred million will have good results?
(either through election or economic forces the end result is the same)

In a perfect world morality would govern every individual and we each would try to make decisions that would end up in the greater good of all people... but there are many selfish and violent people out, along with enough gullible follows to give them power (it's quite shocking to meet somebody who is, in most respects, pretty evil and fairly smart. It gives you a lot to think about), there so the need for elected governmental structure to counter that is a absolute need.

It's just that big business and government both are nessicary evils, both are nessicary and both suck, and like all nessicary evils they should be kept at a minimum.

:-)