Big Business: Friend or Foe? | Peter G. Klein

[@NIK4EVA]

Excellent presentation. The topic at hand is so basic and easy to grasp, yet the majority of the population is oblivious to it.

[@associateone]

Was able to watch all of it. For the most part he appears to do a fine job of describing, and promoting, cronie capitolism.

[@Versedian]

Interesting note on topic; I didn't learn of Corporatocracy or anything related to it while in school. My U.S. Government class was just the basics to allow me to be a perfect little zombie sheep after high school. I.e. Presidents can only serve two terms, stuff like that.

[@Joe11Blue]

It's telling that you have to use extreme examples that are not socially acceptable to say that business is not inherently moral. Morality is defined by society, not by arbitrary ideas of what it should be.

[@Versedian]

I recently missed Ron Paul on the Mises.tv Ustream, any chance it will be uploaded soon?

[@aramagoo]

"after the fact"is key,when gov't is involved with day to day production bad things happen.Procurement such as for defense especially is susceptible to corruption .Some gov't may be necessary,but it must be under continual public scrutiny!And there must be institutional systems to effect such scrutiny.

[@RKAddict101]

Ultimately though, individuals are what makes up society, correct? So individuals would have to have originally come up with those values for those ethics and norms to exist in the first place. You're right in that certain objective circumstances of our society affect the individual's (who are born into that society) conception of ethics, but individuals did come up with it in the first place; if that is admitted, there is no reason why individuals must function in a purely deterministic way.

[@Joe11Blue]

A Society is a loosely organized network of individuals that voluntarily associate on common grounds for a common interest. That means dudes that work on cars are a society, and people that make KZbin videos are a different society. You are always in more than one society at a time, but there is not one singular all encompassing society. The US is not a single society, it's millions of them.

[@Joe11Blue]

Conscience is the internal voice telling you what to value based upon what you have experienced, Ethics. It's not your conscience telling you to not rob the helpless victim across the street from you, it's society and it's norms that created the morality by which you live in. If you remove the value system and morality from a society it becomes barbaric. Ethics will still exist as the smaller thief knows that robbing the larger thief is bad because of experiences with the larger thief.

[@LibertyDownUnder]

Klien's criticism of Ayn Rand here is way off. She clearly mentioned the collusion between business & Governments as the worst possible system of Government. Atlas Shrugged is a detailed example of this.

[@Conan_the_Based]

amoral = Lacking moral sense. It's neither good or bad. As you said, businessmen simply look for ways to satisfy a need. If one of those ways is to sell LSD to 13 year olds, then it'll raise all the moral objections of modern society. That's why I pointed out that "Business is inherently virtuous" is wrong.

[@CapitalismPrevails]

"You can make money selling toys to parents or drugs to children." Well i don't know about selling toys to parents...however the government is doing a darn good job of creating conditions for the latter. Businesses just look for opportunities to serve their customers and inadvertently solve problems in the process. Why is that amoral?

[@RKAddict101]

Individuals are what make up societies though correct? I'm not sure why my argument should change based on this point, could you explain more clearly?

[@CapitalismPrevails]

Businesses is inherently virtuous but is easily corrupted...BY THE GOVERNMENT" Well said.

[@Joe11Blue]

That would be called Ethics. Morality is based upon cultural norms. Culture is a side effect of societal interaction. Therefore Morality is defined by society as it interacts. In Japan it's moral to buy used panties in a vending machine, and there are red-light districts as well. In the US those are not morally acceptable.

[@RKAddict101]

You see, you're not answering my question. Individuals STILL make up societies. At some point in the past, individuals who formed a society or society have to have formed the values that the society embraced.

[@Joe11Blue]

They are not the same thing, and you should read more. Rothbard is a good place to start.

[@Joe11Blue]

The problem is that you are arguing from the position of one singular society. The defined meaning of the word Society indicates that it's virtually impossible to have a singular society anywhere, and the common usage should actually be SOCIETIES.

[@maxtp948]

You can't get an iPhone from a tree, just like an apple 😂😂 Get it?😬😬

[@associateone]

No time to listen to all this gut has to say, but the impression he gives me is that of a snake oil salesman. Capitalism should be about success as a result of making others successful.

[@RKAddict101]

sorry society or societies*

[@pipem4n]

You guys need to read UPB, really. You're going in circles.. that's futile.

[@aretlev]

Mhm.