furtherdimensions t1_j9p9j0v wrote
..wut?
Most people who are of the left wing liberal persuasion of "expand social safety nets, expand job and wage protection, expand safety regulations, expand protections for marginalized communities" are also the same people who want to get corporate money out of politics because it is those corporations who spend millions of dollars lobbying the government to not do those things because it's more profitable if the government doesn't.
People who believe that the government should be more protective of human interests are generally the same people who think the government should be less protective of corporate interests, so inherent in the idea of "expand the government" is "stop making government beholden to corporate interests that are trying to keep the government's expansion in check in order to make more money"
BADman2169420 OP t1_j9pajoh wrote
While the idea of "expanding social safety nets" and such iterations are a different (but valid) topic, I'm more curious about the people who dislike corporations, and for that specific reason, want to expand the government to control the corporations.
TheJeeronian t1_j9pc6mh wrote
Very few people believe that corporations have absolute control of the government. Those who do tend to oppose anything and everything related to the government.
Moat people believe that corporations currently have too much power over the government. They would like to see this reversed, with the government limiting the corporations instead.
furtherdimensions t1_j9pcd4a wrote
Because corporations have a singular and sole objective which is "to make as much money as possible". That's it. That's their only purpose. This is doubly true for publicly traded companies who are obligated to their stock holders who only want their stock price up.
Privately held businesses might operate on the ethical standards of their owner but large corporations have very little practical, financial, or functional reasons to be good employers. They have every practical reason to be profitable businesses.
Which means, in the absence of some power telling them not to they will do anything and everything they can to increase profits. Google the Triangle Shirt Waste Factory fire for a good example of this.
So the functional idea is that if you value people then companies need to be told to NOT do things like..wage collude to keep wages artificially low, or skimp on safety measures, or hide money from taxes or, I dunno, avoid safety precautions on your trains carrying tons of toxic chemicals because it's cheaper, and who cares if some kids in a small town in Ohio get birth defects?
Some people care more that a bunch of women don't die horrifically in a factory fire, or children don't end up with cancer because a train spilled vinyl chloride in the town's water supply, than they do about a company making an extra billion
Tanagrabelle t1_j9pfb0l wrote
Your topic reads like the opposite.
I'm probably not going to be able to express it well, and indeed might even say it very badly. I'll try, though. The U.S. government has one purpose. To keep the states united so they don't start going to war against each other. So there have to be standard laws that apply across all of the states, and laws that apply only in certain states must not violate those laws. Now just replace the word "laws" with "taxes". Sort of, anyway. The taxes that we pay go towards being able to pay the national debt.
Now, this is going to sound ridiculous as I don't know how to say it, but the idea here is that companies don't want to pay taxes, so they try to own government officials to have those people stop rulings that will make them pay taxes. So the folks who want the government to have more authority mean to make those companies pay the tax they should owe.
Angus_Ripper t1_j9pcoyg wrote
They just think of corporations as a mean brother that bullies them and want government i.e. daddy to babysit them instead without realizing that dad is also an abusive alcoholic.
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