Comment by AnthonyMouse
6 hours ago
You're still stuck on publicly-traded corporations.
Try one of these. A non-profit gets a million dollars in donations to build new housing with the model of selling it into the market and using the proceeds to build even more. They still have to comply with all the laws, so you don't want the laws to adversarially impede its humanitarian mission to improve housing affordability and reduce homelessness, right?
> They still have to comply with all the laws, so you don't want the laws to adversarially impede its humanitarian mission to improve housing affordability and reduce homelessness, right?
I do want the laws to ensure that the buildings have fire escapes and no asbestos...
Non profits can, apparently, convert to for-profit ones, or be bought, or be corrupt funnels of government contract money to for-profit corporations.
These are arguments for improving and simplifying regulations, but not arguments against the idea that there should be an entity the represents nothing other than the needs of the constituents (the government) that will enforce rules on entities that wish to extract value from constituents (corporations). Non profit corps are attempts to exist within that system while playing by the rules but it doesn't change the fact that we still need the rules to control the hyperfauna wandering around.
> I do want the laws to ensure that the buildings have fire escapes and no asbestos...
The classic retreat into the subset of the rules that make sense.
But do you also want to ensure that they're no more than two stories tall and supply housing for no more than one family per lot?
> Non profits can, apparently, convert to for-profit ones, or be bought, or be corrupt funnels of government contract money to for-profit corporations.
Which one of these is the concern justifying that a house of a particular size not have a finished basement?
> These are arguments for improving and simplifying regulations, but not arguments against the idea that there should be an entity the represents nothing other than the needs of the constituents (the government) that will enforce rules on entities that wish to extract value from constituents (corporations).
You're back to that assumption that the government represents nothing other than the needs of the constituents. That one's the broken one.
The government has a monopoly on force and anyone who seeks power will work to capture it. It's not a loyal pet and its teeth have blood on them.
> The classic retreat into the subset of the rules that make sense.
Yes, because lasseiz-faire has no allowance for the subset of rules that make sense, so I oppose that mindset, but I don't oppose one that promotes simplified, context aware regulations, such as what the PRC has.
> The government has a monopoly on force and anyone who seeks power will work to capture it. It's not a loyal pet and its teeth have blood on them.
Right, my argument applies only if there's an existent state, and is basically to make the most of it by at least checking the power of corporations, which are more motivated to harm people than governments. If you say there can be bad governments, sure yes, but that's just as much an indictment of lasseiz-faire economics since there can be bad corporations too, and in fact that's far more likely.
Ideally there's no state at all, but the only way to have that without corpotocracy is to also dismantle capitalism and private property, and something tells me you wouldn't be a fan of that either...