Strengthen governments? Corporations have been specifically sowing distrust in government so that they can convince voters to weaken regulations and vote against their own interests. How are corporations strengthening governments when they benefit from weak government?
Corporations benefit from Capitalist governments. Larger Capitalists benefit when it is more difficult to compete, such as with strong IP laws or high startup costs, giving them free reign for monopoly.
They also love large militaries, as the MIC makes a ton of money off the suffering of people worldwide.
A strong government could take down corporations, but it has to want to do it first.
Regulations help to protect large corporations from competition, and then the larger the government is the more contracts it gives out. Are you saying we need a bigger stronger government?
Regulations help protect people from corporations. This libertarian take is total nonsense. What makes competition difficult for new entrants is the overwhelming size of modern day multinational corporations and the capital investment required to wage any sort of real competition which is something that is only going to be fronted by other extremely wealthy interests. So, yes, we do need bigger, stronger governments in relation to those very powerful corporations, specifically strong enough to break them up. Or ideally nationalize them entirely.
That is kind of true but it also protects corporations from small businesses. For example min wage harms small businesses much more than large corporations. You can like the “protection” but then you will get what you get with corporations and costs. If you opt for the bigger government then you will get things like unaffordable houses and inflation, so dont complain when you get what you asked for.
Human beings may not be perfect but a computer program with language synthesis is hardly the answer to the world’s problems.
The west, so afraid of strong government, now has no government. Only financial power. Slogans such as “governments have limited power by design” come from well-paid researchers, think tanks funded by big businesses. It’s privately funded propaganda, like the Trilateral Commision in United States, for instance.
This meme’s text has figures about “now” but doesn’t note that it is mostly a paraphrased quote from Deus Ex, a video game set in a fictional dystopian version of America in 2052. The speaker is not in fact talking about 2024 America. But even for the past figures, I would want citations.
The first part seems to be talking about tax sources as a portion of total taxes raised, which isn’t easy to search for. I did find a table that cited whitehouse.gov and recorded income collections compared to total GDP at least. It did peak in 1945, but only at 7.1%.
The US Bureau of Labor doesn’t seem to have records on self-employment before 1948. The only thing I could find talking about self-employment in 1900 was a blog post that said it was 50%. 90% self-employment sounds like a lot of subsistence farming and odd-jobs work, which isn’t exactly the ideal economic model.
The Deus Ex part is part of a longer conversation, but here is the relevant section:
JC Denton: Just answer the question. Leo Gold: Don’t believe me? It’s all in the numbers. For a hundred years, there’s been a conspiracy of plutocrats against ordinary people. JC Denton: Do you have a single fact to back that up? Leo Gold: Number one: In 1945, corporations paid 50 percent of federal taxes. Now they pay about 5 percent. Number two: in 1900, 90 percent of Americans were self-employed; now it’s about two percent. JC Denton: So? Leo Gold: It’s called consolidation. Strengthen governments and corporations, weaken individuals. With taxes, this can be done imperceptibly over time.
Picture is wrong, my panties would be on the floor (I’m a dude)
