A Campaign that I’d Sign-Up For

Great response! Luckily government schooling only delayed my awakening, instead of totally preventing it.
Competition in schooling!

The problem with that is a government(of the type we have) is accountable to its legitimate citizens first.

A business on the other hand is not. Yes, that is a problem when they are accountable to a relative few. Large enough businesses also have the same problems as large governments.
For what they do against the US government and with their alliances of opportunity(read: offshoring) with despotic governments(South & Central America, mainland SE Asia), honor has no place near business.

With this said, it would be very unproductive to have a business-free childhood. Such a childhood would ignore honest business, possibly their own(if so inclined) to get around the dishonest ones. How about a separation of Business and State to at least reduce this problem?

Kill the minimum wage, watch the South realize its dream of bringing back slavery. Unlike the first iteration, it is not by race, but by US citizenship and lack of desire to form a business. The minimum wage is only a check against businesses who corner the market on US labor(and thus could consider safety as a liability to be minimized). To suggest that it is anything else is to ask it to go out of scope.



No business – “big” or otherwise – can, without special privileges from government, force children or parents to do anything. Disney doesn’t imprison parents who don’t let their kids watch the Disney Channel, and Little Debbie doesn’t pull out a gun to shoot children who turn up their noses at her cupcakes.

The problem is that the force is not that direct. They won't force you with a gun to buy their products, they just use the overwhelming lack of choice to get their way. Make it appealing enough that it becomes the only choice, then use the power from that.

Apply that to labor in terms of offshoring's use and you see that it quickly becomes a problem.

As a southerner, I feel compelled to point out that your understanding of the South is extremely limited.

I strongly support your suggestion of an amendment that separate business and state. Just as the state is not allowed to favor one religion over another the state should not be able to favor one business over another. Also business should be exempt from all taxes. Also just as the government can not discourage religious consumption just because the religion is based in another country, products from other countries should be treated identically as domestic produced products.

Then as long as Freedom of speech is still allowed for all groups of people regardless of the reason that they banded together I see no problem with this amendment.

I'd campaign for it.

LOVE IT!

Thanks danphillips & Mcwop.

Brilliant!

they just use the overwhelming lack of choice to get their way

BS.

Americans have the most extensive set of choices in the world, so much so that some argue that we have too much choice.

In any area where choice is reduced, it is most likely because business has influenced government to make it so with their guns.

That's why there is only one provider for first class mail.

These people make the same argument when they argue that government should protect mom-and-pop stores from eeevil Kroger. Walk down the produce aisles at any supermarket, and try and imagine the corner grocery being able to inventory that kind of choice. I could not buy bok choy, or anduille sausage from a corner grocer in Colorado, unless I happened to live in an Asian neighborhood with lots of Cajun refugees.

Seth, please enlighten me as to this "dream" or "desire" that "the South" has with regards to bringing back some mode of slavery.

Be specific.

I wish I saw this before I posted a reply. I second Ike.

The problem with that is a government(of the type we have) is accountable to its legitimate citizens first.

Supposed to be...not the same as is.

I've been trying to get the government to cut spending on business subsidies and the politicians just won't listen to me...or the millions of other citizens that oppose such subsidies...except when their jobs are involved.

Why do so many people have such difficulty comprehending the critical role of system incentives?

The most significant special interest in California is not Disney or any corporation, but rather the California Teacher's Association and the Prison Guard's union, in that order, followed by various business interests. link

Almost all the products that I can think of where there is lack of choice are monopolies enabled by government - e.g. Cable company government granted monopolies, and local phone companies.

"honor has no place near business."

A business that doesn't consistantly honor it's part of the deal will very quickly be out of business. Honor is everything in business. Unless..., by "honor", you mean "compliance with the will of the political class"... I understand that such people do exist. Personally, I don't find that honorable, and often such behavior is downright despicable.

"Make it appealing enough that it becomes the only choice, then use the power from that."

Power to do what? Make more appealing products? Profit from the existing appealing products? What exactly do you find so objectionable about either?

Power to make less appealing products and to ignore larger amounts of people (read: they can afford to lose larger amounts of people).

Honorable conduct is when they don't try to become a member of the political class. The problem is that beyond a certain size, they do.

Business wouldn't be spending money to be a part of the political class, unless it is profitable to do so. If we make sure that the political class has nothing of value to offer, then business will spend its money more productively.

Judging from your past writing, I doubt that you really want a political class that has little of value to offer business. Your writings indicate that you like the idea of politicians telling business where they must locate their headquarters, what their workforce should look like, and what it should be paid.

If they make less appealing products then their monopoly will end. Only if the government protects them can they avoid competition.

I see no reason why producers should be prohibited from political activity, especially since the raison d'etre of the political class is to exploit them. Ideally we would have a productive government rather than a political (exploitive) government, but as long as the latter is the reality, the producers have a natural right to protect themselves.

Only with the help of government. About 15 years ago the state of Florida slowly moved the school year so it would start earlier. This was done so students could take there exams before winter break. However, with school starting earlier high school students who worked for Disney and the rest of the entertainment industry couldn't be hired during prime season. Now the year is pushed back and students must take there exams after a three week break from not being in the classroom. The bootleggers of course have the baptists saying that is better for the students and teachers.
http://savefloridasummers.org/

That's Disney's fault. They used something that was originally in place for the agricultural era. It isn't their place to please business over actual in-the-flesh constituents.

What was the original rationale for allowing some (but not all) schools to deviate from the schedule(and start earlier)?

I know that it's also Disney's fault, I'm just saying they wouldn't be able to change it without the help of government.

I think counties pick the schedule but they have to start within a certain window.

Disney"s fault

So who put Disney in charge of school schedules?

So who put Disney in charge of school schedules?
My point exactly.

Well it's not a particularly profound point.

No doubt the county collects millions of dollars in revenue both in direct taxes and in sales taxes on the tourist industry. It is also likely that many students, and their parents have an interest in being able to work for Disney.

The reflexive corporate bogeyman argument is a bit tired.

It is well known that governments depend on local business for a great deal of their revenue and thus have an interest in promoting local business activity.

As far as school schedules, one way around them is to home school your children and make your own schedule...like we do. We don't have to worry about corporate, or political influence on our school.

Homeschooling appeals to me, but it can be very inefficient when both parents work 12-16 h/d. Have you heard of groups of families getting together to "home school" their kids in small groups, maybe with hired tutors or by alternating teaching responsibilities? Government schools are potentially mind-destroying, and there are trade-offs that I would rather not make with the curriculum of most private schools.

I'm sure that such arrangements do occur.

There is a fair amount of entrepreneurial activity going on in the home school market.

One of the big problems with creating alternatives, of course, is political involvement in education.

The meme constantly fed to mandatory students of government indoctrination is that of government as sheepherder to citizens as sheep.

What a diminishment of the crown of creation; humans of great capacity being subjugated into the role of passive creatures to be installed in roles as producers of resources for consumption and distribution by the state.

Can you say baaaaaaa?

The same could be said for business as a whole. See offshoring(or the threats of it) and permatemping as examples of said non-governmental applications.

Read John Taylor Gatto's The Makers of Modern Schooling

But again, while commercial persuasion techniques lose effectiveness with repetition, it is ever difficult to refuse men with guns.

I've noticed also that commercial "persuasion" loses its effectiveness over time requiring greater effort in sales to outdo competitors to grab attention.

After a while, consumers wise up, or just become saturated and thus become less vulnerable to commercial inducement.

It remains ever difficult to refuse men with guns.

Sam, take that same thought and look at TV programming from the early 50s and compare it to TV programming today, apply the same principle, and I wonder if you'll see the same race to the bottom of the cess pool that I do.

Or the 80s when most action programs involved evil drug dealers being shot or blow to bits... can you say Drug War propaganda?

I like your letter. Coming to understand and recognize the difference between forced and voluntary was one of the key insights that changed my mind about the role of government. It deserves more attention.

I especially like your reference to how the minimum wage prices teenagers out of the labor market. The last number I saw for teenage unemployment was in the 65%-70% range, and that gets no attention at all in the mass media, nor in any of the national debate about jobs.

Government-free Childhood. I love it.

In as much as it can be had, I had one and it was wonderful. To tell the truth parental control was pretty loose as well. My brothers and I were taught from the git-go to take care of ourselves and then left alone to do it.

Living country or small town most of my life was a plus, we could be crazy in our experiments with life and not risk any one but ourselves.

I don't know how I survived it but it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I was thinking the other day about the difference between "marketing" and "propaganda". It is that the former is distributed by the productive class while the latter is distributed by the political class - and that the latter nearly always carries an open or implied threat.

Don -
How did "attemtp to turn" in your first paragraph morph into "force" in your second paragraph? Did anyone claim that anyone is forcing anyone to do anything?

From what I can tell, a private organization thought Disney was fraudulently promoting a video as educational, and they challenged that fraud in court. It's a little eccentric for my tastes, but I don't see where they were accusing Disney of "forcing" anyone to do anything. I agree with the facts of your second paragraph, but those facts don't negate the fact that some things that some private actors do make other private actors angry.

Daniel: my point is precisely that "attempts to turn" - as long as no force is involved - is NOT "forced." Being concerned with voluntary actions seems to me to be far less justified than being concerned with forcible actions. Commerce falls into the former category; government into the latter.

Re: vidyohs
In addition to this concern of force Vs persuasion there is added the very real symbiotic relationship between businesses and government wherein business wants government force to tilt the playing field to it, and government wants business to promote worship and blind obedience to government.

What of the case where such promotions are for being more "business-friendly"? If you want an example, see the business-friendliness of the South and how it is promoted. It is promoted in a one-sided way that ignores the worker side of it (as there is an inaccurate implication that well-run businesses also have satisfied workers and that business entities always act honorably w/o regulation). A sufficiently unchecked, large, and influential private sector will overcome a government and its constituents.

"A sufficiently unchecked, large, and influential private sector will overcome a government and its constituents."

All that means is that the government has selected a different group of "constituents" (i.e., private business) to favor. The force within the system is still wielded by the government. The solution is not to worry about which group is manipulating the force (i.e., the government), but to eliminate the force so interaction is voluntary. The problem is not business or populist control of government. The problem is government.

"A sufficiently unchecked, large, and influential private sector will overcome a government and its constituents."

Actually, that's pretty much what I'm hoping to see someday. The end of the political class, and a government that trades value for value in accordance with the ethical standards of the productive class.

"a government that trades value for value in accordance with the ethical standards of the productive class"

Dream on.

Actually, that's pretty much what I'm hoping to see someday

The problem with that is that it harms all US citizens.

As for your "productive class" argument, it only makes class warfare worse. It would be used as a weapon against ordinary US citizens, regardless of presumed/actual productive capacity. The political class would still remain and make things worse. Never mind what issues there would be as to the Constitution and its amendments w/r/t limiting political participation(not so much representation, moreso voting) to a select few US citizens.

I disagree that it would harm all. It would harm the political class. And I have no problem with class warfare so long as the classes are understood correctly. The political classes have exploited us for years. Its time we woke up.

P.S. Marx was on the right track. He got lots wrong, but he understood that politics plays an integral role in any system of exploitation, and he was right to seek an end to it.

Would work for me.

In addition to this concern of force Vs persuasion there is added the very real symbiotic relationship between businesses and government wherein business wants government force to tilt the playing field to it, and government wants business to promote worship and blind obedience to government. Those businesses frequently perform social molding of minds through their advertising spots along with their sales pitch. The social molding is background to be sure, but it is still effective particularly to young minds that have no adult counterpoint to what is being shown.

Generally the social molding is slanted to the left, sometimes very heavily so; and, typically the social molding actually has nothing to do with the product being sold. Frequently the extra message doesn't concern government so much as it promotes self-centered behavior often bordered on the pure obnoxious or even cruelty.

Try your own experiment and watch commercials closely and see if you come away with more than the product message.

It is nothing new, either. It has been going on for a very long time.