[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by ChainLegacy

I've already explained their unfair advantage. If you do not want to accept/believe my reasoning that is fine but I'm not going to keep repeating myself. Big business/the ultra-rich should not have the government on their team, and that IS the way things are in the US. Joojoobees has already provided some information regarding that fact, if you want more look it up yourself.

No, you haven't explained it, except to say that Big Business can lobby the politicians more effectively than small ones. Which in itself doesn't explain how reducing the size of the government is going to help, or even how having the government in their pocket truly helps them to start with. You could just as easily claim they're using their influence to make the government stay out of their way when it should intervene.

As for what Joojoobees said, it doesn't argue for your case either. He said:

• that the rich got more money out of the "trickle down" principle than the middle class. But he didn't say how, which makes it impossible to argue one way or the other regarding government size based on that. My guess is that they got more money because they pay more taxes (in absolute if not relative terms), can afford professional accountants and financial planners, and last but not least, because they're the ones to decide where corporate money goes. If you give a buck to a company, it's the boss who decides whose pocket it ends up in, not the minimum wage workers. And none of that has to do with government size, unless you want the government to directly interfere with private companies' financial decisions (by raising minimum wages, or taxing stock options more heavily, for example).
• that labor was taxed more heavily than capital. It's a bare assertion of fact, but I suppose it could be construed as arguing for a different tax structure (not that I'd disagree with him if he did). It, again, says nothing of the size of the government.

Not every industry would change. Malls, electronics distribution centers, etc are industries that inherently gravitate towards large businesses. All I'm saying is, SOME industries (food, clothing, general stores) are not accurately represented because of collusion between the gov. and big business.

Oh? Then what are the mechanisms of that collusion, and how do you propose to level the playing field? Because "economies of scale" happen without government interference. And I can't see a way to negate or reduce that advantage except by government fiat. (For example, by mandating prices on certain commodities.)

The economies of scale are directly exacerbated by the government providing advantages to these industries. So yes, cutting down on the gov. regulations that provide these inherent advantages to corporations would change this state.

OK, what are those advantages?

I'm not saying they would get rid of economies of scale, or that a small government is some kind of magical cure like the last bit of your post states. But currently, as the US is right now, the government helps out/is controlled by large businesses, and how else do you stop that issue other than to cut down on the government's influence?

I don't know. That is, indeed, a problem. But what I wouldn't do would be to give the big businesses what they want, free of charge. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe America really is different, but in Europe, what big businesses clamor for is exactly what you want to give them. Deregulation. It's the workers, the poor, that want more government oversight. Granted, small businesses also want fewer regulations. Or at least simpler ones. But my point is, it isn't an issue of big business vs small. It's an issue of business owner vs worker and consumer.

Wait, I tell a lie. It actually depends on the sector of activity - in some, small businesses do want more government. More on that later.

So, you see, if we want to fight big businesses, we're pretty much stuck with the government. (That's not to say I wouldn't favor shrinking my own government, which I think is bloated. But I wouldn't do it as an anti-Big Business measure. And I'd be careful of where and how I trim the fat.)

As I said earlier, large government does not necessarily mean that big business will wield the kind of power it does here in the US, but here, currently in 2010, IT DOES. They have hijacked the system. Either we limit their ability to manipulate the system, or create an entirely new one. I think the former is at least worth a try before we are forced into a revolution to accomplish the latter.

Granted, but you haven't explained how shrinking the government is going to help. If you want to limit the influence of big money, I'd look more closely at campaign finance laws.

And of course customers aren't buying the alternative goods I've suggested - the alternatives are suffocated by advantages corporations shouldn't have. Yes, economies of scale exist in a free-market, but not to the extent we see today. These are abnormally powerful economies of scale and they exist even in industries where they shouldn't.

Exactly what economies are you talking about, that exist when they shouldn't? The only one I can think of, off the top of my head, would be accounting. A complicated tax structure requiring one or more full-time accountant would be less of a disadvantage for big businesses than small ones. But that's pretty much it.

You're French, right? I've been to France before once, and though I didn't stay long enough to get to know the country very well, I do remember there being some pretty awesome options in terms of locally grown foods. Lots of the US has NO such option, and have nothing other than a Wal-Mart running their local economy. So where is their choice? You claim the consumer will just choose what they want most, but how is this true when the consumer is deprived of alternatives, and when the alternatives exist, they are at a higher price than they should be according to the free market?

Funny you should mention that. In France, agriculture is precisely the sector where small businesses want more government to combat big companies. I'm glad you like our food selection, but you should think about why we have it:

• culture and tradition. We love our food and are proud of it. Which means that the slightly more expensive, fresh, locally produced food market isn't restricted to tree-hugging hippies.
• our agriculture is heavily subsidized. If it wasn't, our local producers would have gone under long ago and we'd all be eating crap imported from the third world and its cheap workers. I read that yours is, too. But - and this is just a guess - I think the difference lies in how we structure our subsidies. We are careful to support small producers (even if not at the level that'd satisfy them) whereas you, AFAIK, support in proportion to the size of the exploitation, which favors big companies with giant fields.

Business should be allowed to fail, and they shouldn't have the government on their side. This isn't about taxes. Our taxes will fall in a free market, but it is a secondary issue because the main problem is what we have today is NOT a free market and our country does not follow its constitution. Is suggesting we return to these philosophies really so radical an idea?

I don't know. I am not convinced that a free market won't, ultimately, favor big businesses more than small ones. That they won't leverage their economies of scale and marketing budget to drive the smaller competition under, or absorb it, until they're an oligopoly. At that point, they'll just agree on the prices (either in some secret illegal deals... or simply by consulting each other's catalogs.)

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

business should be allow to fail. what they should not have been allow to do is get to be to big to fail.

I consider it a lesser evil compared to having some other, less scrupulous country's company becoming big enough to drive or buy yours out.

Not that I wouldn't like some kind of "pound of flesh" rule for bail-outs. Maybe metaphorically, by confiscating the estate of whoever's responsible for the company when it needs a bailout (and of whoever they gave money to for safekeeping). Or maybe with literal pounds of flesh. How much flesh do you think it would come out to, adjusted for inflation since the Trojan war?