Why does the USA seem particularly susceptible to regulatory capture and industry lobbying? Is it just money in politics or is something else happening?
dcgudeman 2 days ago [-]
The USA is not particularly susceptible, you just are exposed to more stories about it happening in the US. It's happening all the time all over the world.
makeitdouble 2 days ago [-]
"small government" fundamentally means "big industries".
When governing entities have limited money and power, they will need a lot of good will from the incumbents to have anything done at all.
pxmpxm 19 hours ago [-]
I'm not so sure the thinly veilled preposition there ("big government" is the solution) actually holds on empirical basis - government-enterprise monoliths don't exactly have a great track record with these things.
makeitdouble 12 hours ago [-]
It's not a proposition.
On an empirical basis, you'll find extreme examples of all situations, from full-on dictatures to company owned land masses. Whether it holds or not has to do with the specific country and its situation.
In a very real way, ideologies don't feed people, and usually it will be the reality of the country that nurtures appropriate philosophies, not the other way round (e.g. Chinese "communism" wouldn't have happened anywhere else, and you can't apply it to other countries willy nilly either)
didgeoridoo 1 days ago [-]
Are you under the impression that the USA has a small government?
The USA is at 38%. That's pretty low compared to most EU countries (e.g. France or Italy are at 58%), even lower than Brazil or Japan. And Japan has no offensive military to throw money at.
BrainInAJar 1 days ago [-]
in terms of things that the government provides to the public, absolutely. The US is incapable of doing anything other than through the military.
waste_monk 2 days ago [-]
Too much drinking lead perhaps.
gsf_emergency 1 days ago [-]
+1 for humorously pointing out (but to me technically correct) that people don't pay enough attention to the feedback loops inherent in big industries
financetechbro 1 days ago [-]
Because industry lobbying = corruption (in most cases)
mrguyorama 20 hours ago [-]
Because the US has way more corpo-sycophants than anyone else. What other country would have enshrined a monopoly into law?
Look how absurdly anti-union everyone is. That was a purposeful century of marketing by companies, and the US populous bought it without complaint.
Look at Citizens united and the absurd way people will twist very simple concepts just to ensure that corporations have MORE rights than people. We have no difficulty with limiting agents of the Government from doing things despite "the government" being made up of people just the same a corporations, but bad actors continue to insist we cannot disambiguate between an individual doing an individual act, and someone doing an act as an agent of say an LLC. Limiting a corporations speech does not limit the speech of individuals, only of agents of the corporation. You can say stuff as an individual that are illegal to say as an official entity of the org.
Nasrudith 14 hours ago [-]
What other country would have enshrined a monopoly into law? How about all of Europe for one? The entire guild system was all about granting monopolies. And that is before getting into the India Companies. An officially enshrined monopoly has been the norm far more often than officially prevented monopolies.
I was wondering why cities in my state started sending out notices for replacement service lines.
ProllyInfamous 2 days ago [-]
Our city released a public GIS map and I no longer eat/drink from leaded homes/businesses (like 5% of city addresses, mostly in older neighborhoods).
FooBarBizBazz 2 days ago [-]
I'm sure there are current things that are like this.
The first that comes to mind is atrazine. Its use is banned in the EU.
Yes, this chemical is the cause of Alex Jones' concerns about amphibians. But if both the EU and Alex Jones can agree on something, maybe it's worth paying attention.
Or Teflon pans? The things that kill literal canaries -- not in the coal mine, but in your kitchen?
Given what we've just read here on HN about US use of Agent Blue (arsenic! An element! On rice paddies! It never degrades, because it's an element!), it seems clear that the chemical industry in particular has disgusting amounts of power. I just don't understanding how you can be so short-sighted as to "gift" the world tetraethyl lead, the Rainbow Agents, and atrazine, and then run public relations campaigns in support of all of them, but apparently this is what these people do. I don't know if it's motivated reasoning or straight-up sociopathy or what.
That this kind of shit has happened sufficiently-often, I will add, is why the public is also losing faith in essential things like vaccines. You can't keep squandering trust.
thejazzman 23 hours ago [-]
As a fan of shows like Dexter, your sociopathy comment leaves me wondering... any aspiring serial killers who would operate at such a scale? Has it already happened? We seem unable to deal with such threats, since it hides intent so well
Nasrudith 13 hours ago [-]
> I don't know if it's motivated reasoning or straight-up sociopathy or what.
Motivated reasoning is one hell of a drug for one. There are strong cognitive biases towards 'good for me' as 'good for the world'. It cuts across all walks of life.
Rendered at 18:25:52 GMT+0000 (UTC) with Wasmer Edge.
When governing entities have limited money and power, they will need a lot of good will from the incumbents to have anything done at all.
On an empirical basis, you'll find extreme examples of all situations, from full-on dictatures to company owned land masses. Whether it holds or not has to do with the specific country and its situation.
In a very real way, ideologies don't feed people, and usually it will be the reality of the country that nurtures appropriate philosophies, not the other way round (e.g. Chinese "communism" wouldn't have happened anywhere else, and you can't apply it to other countries willy nilly either)
The USA is at 38%. That's pretty low compared to most EU countries (e.g. France or Italy are at 58%), even lower than Brazil or Japan. And Japan has no offensive military to throw money at.
Look how absurdly anti-union everyone is. That was a purposeful century of marketing by companies, and the US populous bought it without complaint.
Look at Citizens united and the absurd way people will twist very simple concepts just to ensure that corporations have MORE rights than people. We have no difficulty with limiting agents of the Government from doing things despite "the government" being made up of people just the same a corporations, but bad actors continue to insist we cannot disambiguate between an individual doing an individual act, and someone doing an act as an agent of say an LLC. Limiting a corporations speech does not limit the speech of individuals, only of agents of the corporation. You can say stuff as an individual that are illegal to say as an official entity of the org.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_Industries_Association
The first that comes to mind is atrazine. Its use is banned in the EU.
Yes, this chemical is the cause of Alex Jones' concerns about amphibians. But if both the EU and Alex Jones can agree on something, maybe it's worth paying attention.
Or Teflon pans? The things that kill literal canaries -- not in the coal mine, but in your kitchen?
Given what we've just read here on HN about US use of Agent Blue (arsenic! An element! On rice paddies! It never degrades, because it's an element!), it seems clear that the chemical industry in particular has disgusting amounts of power. I just don't understanding how you can be so short-sighted as to "gift" the world tetraethyl lead, the Rainbow Agents, and atrazine, and then run public relations campaigns in support of all of them, but apparently this is what these people do. I don't know if it's motivated reasoning or straight-up sociopathy or what.
That this kind of shit has happened sufficiently-often, I will add, is why the public is also losing faith in essential things like vaccines. You can't keep squandering trust.
Motivated reasoning is one hell of a drug for one. There are strong cognitive biases towards 'good for me' as 'good for the world'. It cuts across all walks of life.