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It's actually a completely justified intrusion into the market.

To answer questions posed by others since I'm apparently posting too fast:

The reasons governments should intervene are well-elaborated in the blog post under discussion.

Governments worldwide already have plenty of control over what terms corporations can sell their wares to people on. For example, in Europe you must offer at least two years of warranty.

Corporations are government-granted legal fictions, so a government is free to impose whatever constraints it wants on corporations. In return, corporations get plenty of benefits like the ability to declare bankruptcy and not have it hit the pocketbooks of its executives. I would be fine with a regime where if a corporation doesn't abide by the rules, its executives become personally liable for debts, for example.




By what standard are you claiming justification besides “it has been done before”?

> so a government is free to impose whatever constraints it wants on corporations

Sorry this is just stated, not justified. I happen to think that the government should not have unilateral control.


It's the truth. Unilateral control is the reality, and I'm interested in exploring how to harness it to improve the lot of humanity.

For example, I think Stripe should be able to compete with Apple to be a payment provider on Apple's platform.

As I said, I would be a fine with a world where if Tim Cook doesn't want to play by the government's rules, he is jointly and severally liable for Apple's debts. There are real benefits that come with being a corporation. There need to be responbilities to society as well.


> It's the truth

I realize that the federal government /can/ do things, it's whether they/it /should/ do them.

"I want them to" and "It's been done before" don't fly. These are contracts between willing participants, none of which have been broken. The federal government would be overstepping proper bounds to interfere.

> Unilateral control is the reality

Yes. Which is why we should minimize the regulation coming out at the federal level.

> There need to be responbilities to society as well.

They owe you nothing. They provide a product, you either buy it or you don't.


But why?




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