"I always thought this was a devastating point that should almost convert a leftist to being a libertarian. I will throw this out as genuinely a good faith question. I want to hear the answer..." --Dave Smith Tag someone you think could answer this 👇

Can’t speak for leftists, but I’ve spoken to a lot of them, so I’ll try. Dave seems to be making the point that a) our government is big, b) corporations control our big government, therefore c) a big government will necessarily be controlled by corporations. The most reasonable objection is that c does not follow from a & b. Big government is an inevitability in the modern era, if only because small governments are too weak to defend their prerogatives from corporate interests intent on growing the government to serve their ends. The two choices, then, are a small government incapable of defending itself from corporate interests intent on growing it to serve their ends, or a state strong enough to defend its prerogatives from corporate interests. It is not realistic to hope that a small, weak government can sustainably assert authority against the reach and resources brought to bear by the finance, defense, energy, transportation, communications, etc industries. All roads lead to big government, and the relevant question is how to politically organize and mobilize the citizenry to challenge corporations (and other concentrated interests) for control over it. Libertarianism is not a strategy to achieve small government, but is simply an abandonment of the fight for control over the only government that’s possible under current circumstances.

I'm gonna go ahead and tag @cenkuygur and @AnaKasparian If corporations love free markets and corporations own the government, then why don't we have free markets?

Corporate power prefers captured big government rigging the game in their favor even harder, but "small government" isn't the answer because regular people would still be screwed in a deregulated America. What you need is small-D democratic control of society & regulation to protect people from exploitative corporate power.

@ComicDaveSmith If this is capitalism then I'm a fucking aardvark

@ComicDaveSmith Leftists use the Marxist definition of capitalism & Libertarians use the Austrian definition, so we end up talking past each other. When leftists blame “capitalism” they’re actually blaming Corporatism. Most leftists have never studied economics so they don’t know the difference.

@ComicDaveSmith The point isn’t devastating because leftists don’t give a damn about workers. They’re just using them as an excuse to fuel their hatred for successful people. There’s no reasoning with leftists precisely because they’re motivated by pure irrational hatred.

@ComicDaveSmith I honestly don’t think @ComicDaveSmith has actually asked this question to many smart leftists. Obviously corporations use regulations to their advantage. That doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be regulations.

@ComicDaveSmith “Special Interests” control the government? Ya don’t say!

@ComicDaveSmith Have done it multiple times, they just give you some bullshit about how the government needs to remove corporate influence from government. Doesn't phase them at all.

@ComicDaveSmith Government spending isn't being cut because it's free money to the military industrial complex that makes multi-billion dollar equipment that doesn't work efficiently, and grifters like Elon Musk who use government money to infalte their companies' value. Dave knows this.

@ComicDaveSmith “Regulations are written for the benefit of big corporations.” - Ron Paul

@ComicDaveSmith Big Gov protects Big Biz and squashes everything else. It's all an illusion and a result of crony capitalism. Big Gov grows like a tick.

@ComicDaveSmith Because they are OUTSIDE of our systems, none of it applies to them, 'they' are a small number of untouchables

@ComicDaveSmith If I were to guess, we don't see the reduction of regulations because that would benefit potential competition. Big business can deal with regulations if they crush small businesses.

@ComicDaveSmith This question needs to be posed to Joe Rogan.

@ComicDaveSmith Dave you’re not adding the fact leftist are retarded in your calculations.

@ComicDaveSmith I’m tagging me. @rtptalks

@ComicDaveSmith The answer is found in the jungle by Sinclair

@ComicDaveSmith It's like why evil greedy corporations willingly pay men more than women. Why do these rapacious companies limit their profitabily by hiring any men at all when they could achieve the exact same results by hiring only women for less?

@ComicDaveSmith Because laissez faire enabled monopolies for them to become wealthy & be able to bribe the gov't which is the theoretical bulwark against corporation domination. Then that's used to get the policies they want, while maintaining the illusion of democracy.

@ComicDaveSmith Lefties are full of shit. Communists end-goal was no government. They just want the perpetual revolution and to punish the 'bourgeoisie'.

@ComicDaveSmith Their answer is China

@ComicDaveSmith "Government is owned by interests that are not the people" The government is a representation of the people. The libertarian take would be less government, because when it's larger you have more interests involved. The left will never go for that. They want their interests.

@ComicDaveSmith The answer that they won't admit to is communism. Getting rid of private property, entrepreneurs, and voluntary transactions. They want Cuba.

@ComicDaveSmith Yeah, I think large businesses would rather buy off a politician than openly advocate for what they want and rush being “seen”

@ComicDaveSmith You'll never get an answer from a leftist. If you understand that leftism is based on who/whom, you realize that the left attack corporations because they want to be in charge, and they can see themselves as being in charge of the gov't, but not business.

@ComicDaveSmith Leftist only have a problem with money in politics when the money isn’t going to left wing politicians.

@ComicDaveSmith I'm predicting you'll get nothing but word salad and baseless assertions

@ComicDaveSmith I think a better question to ask is if private property is theft is growing food for myself stealing?

@ComicDaveSmith Say umm some more

The answer is simple and maybe @ComicDaveSmith goes into it, but big business needs customers to survive. Government is just a welfare system. It is white collar welfare and blue collar welfare. And a legit welfare system. What is the percentage of people who work for the government and or get welfare checks from the government? All those people are basically on universal income and never have to turn a profit or be productive. They just consume and they are going to eat the host at some point and we here in sector can't do anything about it because we support more the half the country. And they only vote one way.

@ComicDaveSmith All leftists care about is power. Socialists are authoritarians. They don't care if it is corporations, they don't care about money in politics. It just needs to be them at the controls.