Declan sides with Big Business [LWN.net]

Declan sides with Big Business

Posted Aug 15, 2002 14:27 UTC (Thu) by HalfMoon (guest, #3211)
Parent article: Engage with government - or ignore it?

...but not Big Government.

The intellectual hypocrisy of the whole Cato crowd (he loves his contacts there) is that they only acknowledge the danger of one type of unrestrained power. They think that for some reason it's OK if such power is held in private and unaccountable hands (corporations), while it's not OK when it's held in hands that are at least marginally accountable (government).

So while Declan masquerades, on occasion, as someone who actually values the principles of independance on which the US, and much "hacker" culture, is founded ... he is often intentionally blind to the fact that the assaults on liberty today come more often from corporate sources than from governmental ones. The DMCA and its ilk were created for corporate lobbyists, after all.

In short, be extremely skeptical of advice from Declan. His purposeful blindness might make sense in a world where corporations had the same type and degree of constraints that "mere individuals" have ... but sadly, that's not the world in which his advice is issued.

I like the "do both" conclusion better. There's no way governments can do their job when only corporatations (or otherwise wealthy people/organizations) are able to influence them. Or when the world evolves only along the lines those corporations wanted in the first place.

to post comments

Pentagon sides with Big Business

Posted Aug 16, 2002 14:32 UTC (Fri) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link]

"... it's OK if such power is held in private and unaccountable
hands (corporations), while it's not OK when it's held in hands
that are at least marginally accountable (government)"

Excellent point and excellently worded! But it's not actually
true that government power isn't responsible for "assaults
on liberty". Sure, that power is wielded in favour of and
on behalf of corporate interests, but the government "monopoly
of force" continues to be the primary instrument of oppression.

Global capital is able to bend multiple governments to its will
but this is only really possible because the WTO and IMF have
the guns of the worlds most powerful military establishments
right behind the threat of "trade sanctions". Essentially all
internationally important decisions right now are made by the
incumbents and lobbyists of the US and UK governments -- even
the other G8 members are increasingly marginalised.

It is therefore vital for the citizens of these two supposedly
democratic countries to make as much noise as possible and to
hold their governments to account, before more lives are lost
to the demands of the trusts and corporations to keep the poor
terrorised and hungry, and the merely wealthy scared and
compliant.