"We need the government to prevent monopolies from hurting the little guy!"--/u/Throwahoymatie
~ every progressive ever
When I encountered this comment, I was initially confused. I don't normally consider governments to be monopolies. I asked /u/ThrowAhoyMatie to elaborate his complaint and was offered this video. Unfortunately, it only brought up more questions.
I regularly shift back and forth often between wanting small and big governments. I mentioned in my last post that not having a government banking system makes me mad. I should probably mention that I mean the part of the system that allows for debit cards- I understand why letting government run loans and credit would be an awful choice. But just as often as I want a big government to swoop in and fix problems, I curse the gradual conglomeration of state governments operating under federal rules. I'm a big fan of states legalizing THC for that reason primarily. States were designed to be united but independent, isolated experiments to find out if X or Y was the better way to Z. Now their just arbitrary lines that don't really differentiate for the most part.
So for me, it's a toss up whether federal government is a good thing. But government having competition? That's a totally unconsidered concept for me. It's possible, of course, this poster was trying to stir up trouble. But it wouldn't be the first time that stirring up trouble becomes something much greater than the undisturbed thing it came from. So I thought about it.
Funny enough, existing competition wasn't my first thought. We all agree our democracy is broken, whatever internal competition we might have had between candidates has evaporated in favor of parties and the businesses who fund them. External competition exists, but less and less. To have a high standard of living you basically have to live in America or a place America thinks (knows) it has the right to punch people in the nose.
No, my first thought was that government was designed to mitigate a problem, and that problem persists. Monopolies would still exist without government and would continue to hurt the little guy. Isn't the little guy worth protecting? The video was compelling, though. It clearly elaborated that the government is, by any measure, a monopoly with nukes. It even implied, reasonably, that the "true" purpose of government was to gain wealth. I have no doubt, based on the people I've worked with, my own emotions, and what I've seen of people who contribute to the world, that some people really do want to "reduce worldsuck". I can't argue and don't think, however, that government is filled with only these people.
So, accepting that governments are localized monopolies that use violence to gain wealth, I still can't see a better tool to protect citizens from other monopolies. In fact, that's a core principle of a government: Provide for the defense of its people from foreign powers, which have been established as monopolies. While I have many good reasons to choose this government over a country run by wal-mart, I remain more interested in what a better solution could be.
Some people believe that privatizing everything would make the world a better place. Like any generalization or extreme view, it's easy to poke fun at that, but the truth is private companies do a hell of a lot of good. Charities are all private and very often there are companies that go above and beyond what government requires to the benefit of everyone except the top of the food chain. It's hard for me to imagine Apple or Winn Dixie arming employees to fend off impending armies, but it's not nearly as hard to imagine Google doing it.
On the other hand, I don't think it's hard to imagine a government that ran smoother than ours. I don't think the federal government should be the model for the good a government can do. There are plenty of places enforcing things that should be enforced and disregarding what they should. Presidents like FDR and Truman make me optimistic about giving the right people money and watching them go. Which is, basically, the same as privatization.
So maybe we should be calling governments companies. They have a mission statement, internal organization, and a business model. The only real difference is that a government assumes you to be a citizen and forces you to play by its rules while they provide for you just because you're born there. But some companies are halfway there already.
Largely, I think I'm okay with that. It doesn't change what they've done or how they're organized. Up until now, no company has ever been as close as Disney and Google are to being governments. We haven't needed to differentiate companies by size- a company is a company is a company, unless it's a government. Then it's a company++. The same rules that applied before apply when you think of a government as a company. Maybe "company" is just so flexible a term that it is bound to be meaningless. It can describe PMCs, hospitals, entertainers, individuals, conglomerates, and global coalitions. Kind of a stretch to fit them all under one umbrella.
