this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2025
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It used to be reality. Copyright law was reasonable and largely unchanged for 180 years, it lasted 28 years, with an optional extension for another 28 years. Originally it was 14 years, with an optional extension for another 14 years. The same is true for a number of other stupid laws that large corporations exploit.
Agreed, and maybe we should consider constitutional limits on what governments can do. You won't bribe someone who is legally restricted from helping you...
But honestly, the root of the problem, I think, is the two-party system, which encourages corruption, especially when state governments get to redraw federal districts. We shouldn't be pushing for individual changes to separate government from big money until we solve the problem with party politics.
Some suggestions:
That's true of any economic system. You said you're not pushing socialism, but you didn't offer what you do support, so I'll speak broadly.
Power attracts money, and money attracts power. These are constants in human nature, and they need to be watched very closely. My point is that increasing the ability of governments to make changes that benefit or hurt the market attracts big money, so we should be very careful of anything we ask our governments to do. Having a political system that encourages entrenched politicians just exacerbates the problem. And moving more and more powers to the executive branch reduces the amount of work companies need to put in to get a desired result (e.g. Trump can be bought).
My opinion is that, in general, rules should be crafted and enforced as locally as possible, which would then dramatically increase the work required for a large entity to get what they want. Federal policy should be simple and limited to only what's needed for a functioning union, and likewise down the chain.
What you're missing is that as companies get bigger, they lose sight of their competitive advantage. Look at big household names from 50 years ago (or sooner!) that don't really exist today. Capitalism works by smaller upstarts finding a competitive advantage, exploiting it, and then the cycle repeats.
The way large orgs compete now is by buying small orgs. We could consider blocking corporations from buying other corporations, which should encourage more disruption vs larger orgs (i.e. erode wealth of the big players), since they can't just buy their competitors.
I really don't think the two are related. Look at fascism before WW2, they didn't need to erode capitalism first, they just ran on a populist platform, identified a common enemy, and used the platform and enemy as an excuse to eliminate democracy, at which point they could nationalize whatever industries they want. The transition to fascism throughout history has been through political means, not the market.
I suppose it's possible for it to happen in the other order, but I don't think it's inevitable. We had a similar situation w/ Standard Oil taking over everything, and we ended up doing some trust busting to fix the issue. It's not too late to change course, we just need the public to recognize the problem and demand change.