Corporations influencing the government - good or bad?

ehtheist

ehtheist

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I was just browsing NBC and saw this article:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/corporate-boycotts-become-key-weapon-gay-rights-fight-n545721

It's an article glorifying the power that corporations have to influence state governments to make laws according to their political agenda. It seems like a lot of left wing oriented people think this is great in this case. I find this odd, and a bit at odds with the general narrative I hear about corporations influencing government from the left - about how corporations have too much power to influence the government, how corporations influencing bills and legislation to what they want is an abuse of their power, about how corporations shouldn't be able to push our government around. Suddenly, in this instance, corporations are being cheered on.

It got me thinking - is corporate influence only bad in the government when it doesn't align with our personal political ends for the left? I know this is the case for the right, but is the left pretty much on the same page with this? They'll scream bloody murder about corporations having too much power to influence government one day, then praise how wonderful they are when corporations are bullying governments to do what the left wants?
 
I have seen it go the other way but won't see it that way. The government can ask a business to do something but it will be very costly for the business and can even take up all of the free cash flow. The deal making will start, sometimes a business will agree to do something but in the end the business is no better off with the deal or sometimes even worse off. The government had to make some concessions because they were asking to business to do something against their own interest.

It goes both ways. Government influences business and business influences government. The government cannot yet legally force businesses to do certain things so a bit of a game happens at times and business will take a hit at times to be in good graces with whoever the government is at the time.
 
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This is the most important principle of democracy: When you're doing it, you're advancing an important cause. When the other guy does it, he's undermining the government and destroying civilization as we know it.
 
ehtheist said:
I don't think it is in this scenario.
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Government does not have the power to force a business to stay if there is not a contract to stay or do business there. These businesses are not obligated to do business there. They are not forcing the government to do anything.

These businesses are saying they will leave if they don't get their way. That is their right. The government can make the businesses happy or can chose not to. Neither can force the other to do anything so it's not control.
 
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panamaican said:
I think it is. The 2 words don't have remotely similar definitions.
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In this case though, we're often talking about lobbying and/or boycotting. "Control" implies no choice, whereas influencing implies those being influenced have a choice. Under many lobbying/boycotting situations, the state or country government in question always has the choice of not bending to the corporation, but it's still bad. Jack's implication that control is bad, influence is good, seems stupidly simple. I assume he's not named after Simple Jack, so I'd like further explanation.

In many cases, it's not the case that a corporation truly controls a government, and yet the heavy pressure of lobbying, threatening going out of state/overseas if the government doesn't play ball, etc, is undeniably bad for the state - but all they're doing is "influencing" technically... So, is influencing really good, as Jack is implying when it amounts to a looming threat of economic woes if the government doesn't do what they want? I don't know - because he didn't explain himself.

Coming in and saying "controlling bad, influencing good" is a woefully simplistic shoehorning of a complex issue. Oftentimes businesses influencing governments amounts to hurting the state economy if the government gives in - no control, and still bad for the people, bad for the government, bad for everyone but the corporation. I'd just like for Jack to actually explain his comment rather than keeping me guessing as to what he means. Being pithy doesn't further the discussion much.
 
ehtheist said:
In this case though, we're often talking about lobbying and/or boycotting. "Control" implies no choice, whereas influencing implies those being influenced have a choice. Under many lobbying/boycotting situations, the state or country government in question always has the choice of not bending to the corporation, but it's still bad. Jack's implication that control is bad, influence is good, seems stupidly simple. I assume he's not named after Simple Jack, so I'd like further explanation.

In many cases, it's not the case that a corporation truly controls a government, and yet the heavy pressure of lobbying, threatening going out of state/overseas if the government doesn't play ball, etc, is undeniably bad for the state - but all they're doing is "influencing" technically... So, is influencing really good, as Jack is implying when it amounts to a looming threat of economic woes if the government doesn't do what they want? I don't know - because he didn't explain himself.

Coming in and saying "controlling bad, influencing good" is a woefully simplistic shoehorning of a complex issue. Oftentimes businesses influencing governments amounts to hurting the state economy if the government gives in - no control, and still bad for the people, bad for the government, bad for everyone but the corporation. I'd just like for Jack to actually explain his comment rather than keeping me guessing as to what he means. Being pithy doesn't further the discussion much.
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So what? Influence doesn't become control just because it was effective. What's simplistic is failing to understand that.
 
panamaican said:
Responding to persuasion does not equate to being controlled.
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It's pretty rare that one individual body has true control of another. It's just a case of what type of influence crosses an oftentimes arbitrary, oftentimes morally oriented, threshold of acceptability. When someone says "I'll kill your family if you don't do X" you're not technically being controlled, but that type of influence is colloquially treated as being controlled. Most notions of "control," when it comes to the choices we make, operate along these lines. In the case of governments VS corporations, there is very rarely true control taking place, so influence being presented as always good just seems overly simple.

I'm not going to continue on this strand of discussion in any case. I've simply asked for a very simplistic comment relating to a complex issue to be further explained. If Jack doesn't want to, that's up to him. If you are in line with what he's saying, that's between you and him. I would like further clarification. That's that.
 
Bad. At no point does any business care about country or its citizens. Only on occasions where altruism happen to overlap with profit motive does it appear that corporations care.
 
panamaican said:
So what? Influence doesn't become control just because it was effective. What's simplistic is failing to understand that.
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This whole query is about whether control/influence is good or bad. Did you stop to think that I'm not just asking him to explain the words, but the good/bad distinction in this case, and expand on his relation between control/influence good/bad? I'm either assuming that he's using some very particular notions of influence/control that expand upon the stupid simplicity of his comment, or his notion of good/bad or this case are very particular. As it is, his comment is very unhelpful in the case presented because it is so damned simplistic.
 
Prefect said:
Bad. At no point does any business care about country or its citizens. Only on occasions where altruism happen to overlap with profit motive does it appear that corporations care.
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That part is completely untrue. They can care and some do.
 
ehtheist said:
This whole query is about whether control/influence is good or bad. Did you stop to think that I'm not just asking him to explain the words, but the good/bad distinction in this case, and expand on his relation between control/influence good/bad? I'm either assuming that he's using some very particular notions of influence/control that expand upon the stupid simplicity of his comment, or his notion of good/bad or this case are very particular. As it is, his comment is very unhelpful in the case presented because it is so damned simplistic.
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On good or bad that depends on the eye of the beholder.
 
ehtheist said:
It's pretty rare that one individual body has true control of another. It's just a case of what type of influence crosses an oftentimes arbitrary, oftentimes morally oriented, threshold of acceptability. When someone says "I'll kill your family if you don't do X" you're not technically being controlled, but that type of influence is colloquially treated as being controlled. Most notions of "control," when it comes to the choices we make, operate along these lines. In the case of governments VS corporations, there is very rarely true control taking place, so influence being presented as always good just seems overly simple.

I'm not going to continue on this strand of discussion in any case. I've simply asked for a very simplistic comment relating to a complex issue to be further explained. If Jack doesn't want to, that's up to him. If you are in line with what he's saying, that's between you and him. I would like further clarification. That's that.
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So, you're not interested in the straightforward difference between the 2. Instead you're arguing for some arbitrary line in the sand where the definition of one word becomes the definition of a second word? Forgive me but that seems pointless.
 
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