U.S. Corporations Are Openly Trying to Destroy Core Public Institutions

https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7bnyb/meta-spacex-lawsuits-declaring-ftc-nlrb-unconstitutional

by gdilla • 2 years ago

41 62 2 years ago

vice.com

justrealist2• 2 years ago

Well. Is the structure of those organizations unconstitutional?

If Vice is hammering on the litigant rather than the contents of the case, I sort of suspect the answer is yes.

StopTheTechies2• 2 years ago

Known legal expert "vice media"

jauntywundrkind• 2 years ago

It depends a lot on which judges you ask. That is kind of the point: it's not a resolvable question. There is no one true perfect interpretation which is correct.

And a huge part of America is braying mad to tear down governance & institutions. Now that they have so many of their people in such high seats of power, a bullet from the blue could come and topple any institution or governance.

rectang2• 2 years ago

Germane quote from a document referenced in the article:

“Contemporary fights about labor are also inherently fights about constitutional law—about the rights to which citizens and residents are entitled, about governmental powers and structure, and ultimately about how we constitute ourselves as a nation,” Andrias wrote.

CuriousCosmic2• 2 years ago

They aren't focusing on the contents of a specific case because there are multiple. And they link to articles that explain the contents of each of those cases.

What the article is doing however is mostly providing historical context for these cases and how they are potentially dangerous given the supreme court's recent change in philosophy.

sabarn018• 2 years ago

They buried the lead. This is all really about Chevron doctrine which gives a large amount of deference to administrative agencies. The current court has indicated they might be willing to overturn Chevron which would mean rule making would be more constrained by the governing legislation. There is a lot of regulation that would come under scrutiny under a different standard. The real question everyone is missing is how much quasi legislative authority should be granted to the administrate state.

justrealist2• 2 years ago

The NLRB debate is not really about that. It's about leadership which can only be fired for cause.

beaeglebeached14• 2 years ago

Good. Hopefully they're all privatized.

olliej3• 2 years ago

While also actively removing the rights of employees and claiming that is their constitutional right. Woo!

beaeglebeached14• 2 years ago

Explain the constitutional basis for the civil rights act, a law stripping intrastate business owners of their civil rights while congress pulls the ability to regulate intrastate trade out of a hat. It all goes downhill from that insane legislation.

mrcode007• 2 years ago

You get sovereignty in return. You know, if the history unfolded differently you could have been speaking French, or Spanish or something else. I think this is the fair basis. Citizens have rights and responsibilities. Why would corporations only have rights if they so insist on being treated as persons?

lowbloodsugar2• 2 years ago

Explain the constitutional basis for a corporation. It all goes downhill from that insane legislation.

quantified• 2 years ago

I suppose the problem you have is that business owners aren't free to force people to use different entrances, washrooms, and drinking fountains?

kmeisthax3• 2 years ago

a law stripping intrastate business owners of their civil rights to strip private citizens of their civil rights

There, fixed that for you.

feedforward• 2 years ago

while congress pulls the ability to regulate intrastate trade out of a hat

The hat would be article one, section eight, clause three of the US Constiution which grants Congress the power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States".

olliej3• 2 years ago

Explain the constitutional basis for people's desire to discriminate against people of different races and religions?

The CRA exists because a bunch of shithead treason states hate the constitution's requirements that they treat people equally regardless of race. Prior to the CRA specifying that such actions had actual penalties these states routinely prevent PoC from equal employment, equal service, equal pay, and frequently the right to vote. Before you even get to the whole murdering PoC and people who support them and somehow never being able to find the culprits.

Look I get it that many people live in this delusional world where the constitution only applies if its beneficial to them, and the protections only apply if it protects them, but things like the CRA and the NLRB exist specifically to deal with those shitheads by saying "just because your state government is racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-non-christians, anti-actual-people's rights, and is generally bigoted doesn't mean you can say those policies supersede the US constitution". These laws, regulations, and institutions all came into existence at the federal level, because of treason states refusing to just obey the actual US constitution, which definitionally supersedes any shitty beliefs those rundown BS states may have.

If your argument is "restricting interstate trade in response to violating the constitution" is unconstitutional, I wonder how you reconcile that with punishing people for violating any law? after all isn't incarcerating someone depriving them of their constitutional rights?

sabarn018• 2 years ago

The 14th amendment.

StopTheTechies2• 2 years ago

This really just underlies how shitty the concept of "constitutional right" has become at expressing "behavior I'd very happily kill to protect".

rhuru• 2 years ago

the NLRB and FTC—are "unconstitutional."

Neither of them are "core public institution". NLRB has probably destroyed more jobs that all recessions combines and might have hurt the poorest and most vulnerable population lot more. They have worked to spread the cancer of collective bargaining powers, coercive unions and other protections for their favourite people at the expense of american consumers.

FTC

This should be considered unconstitutional. If you provide a service that is cheap you are "predatory", if you provide a service that is very expensive you are "price gauging" and if you are average your are "colluding".

FTC is an evil eye of sauron that is on every damn successful business.

I hope "trader joes" succeeds in putting a stake into hearts of these two vampires.

rectang2• 2 years ago

Businesses are collective entities. They enjoy efficiencies of scale when crafting legal strategies and negotiating with workers. Workers should enjoy collective rights similar to business owners.

beaeglebeached14• 2 years ago

Workers can 'enjoy' ponying up the capital and risk and start employee owned business.

CuriousCosmic2• 2 years ago

If you provide a service that is cheap you are "predatory", if you provide a service that is very expensive you are "price gauging" and if you are average your are "colluding".

If you unsustainably provide a service for less than it costs you to undercut competition then yes it is predatory.

If you coordinate a standard price with your competitors then yes that's collusion.

If you overprice your service or good to extract a massive margin now that there's no competition (or the competition is also doing the same thing) or the consumer otherwise has no other choice then yes of course that's price gouging.

These really aren't that complicated of concepts.

sabarn018• 2 years ago

Sure but often these are levied by insiders to shut down outsiders. The long term problem with regulatory bodies is capture. Which is another reason that the core of this issue the Chevron doctrine is bad law. Regulator should be required to hue closely to their legislative mandate.

kmeisthax3• 2 years ago

I see the temporarily embarrassed aristocrats are out in force again.

I'll put it as simply as I can: the NLRB and FTC are there to prevent force and fraud, same as every other liberal institution. You just don't like it because you want your particular brand of coercion to be treated as a right.

The NLRB protects workers' freedom of association from capital's long-standing, multigenerational attempts to cancel[0] that freedom. The FTC protects the market from privatized attempts to impose price floors or ceilings. Large businesses wield power commensurate with governments and should be regulated proportionally to their ability to do government things.

Big business has spent over 50 years insulating themselves from market forces through regulatory capture, selective deregulation, and the complete dismantling of antitrust. Hiding your coercion behind the guise of helping the American consumer is unhelpful, because those consumers are also workers. You are beating up kids for lunch money with the promise that you might give some of it back.

[0] Cancel as in Twitter.

the_only_law• 2 years ago

Ah yes, another fine example of the retardation of HN. Tell me again how this place has so much better discussion than [site you cry about constantly].

303uru2• 2 years ago

Why wouldn't they? They've got a supreme court filled with people essentially yelling "hey, throw me money and you'll get what you want!" Half of them worked on the supreme court overthrowing the will of voters in Bush vs Gore. They're corrupt to the core and sycophants to the billionaire class.

At the end of the day, corporations and labor both see the writing on the wall. Immigration is not popular and younger generations in the US are shrinking, there's no replacement population. So theoretically labor should gain power and there is increased labor organization happening in the US. But, corporations are not going to sit back and let that happen. So we see attacks on all levels of government when it comes to labor protections. Hell, several states have already put children back to work. The new deal is fully under attack and I think a lot of the people cheering it on are going to be most hurt by it.

lowbloodsugar2• 2 years ago

Bottom line, if you enjoy the protections of being a corporation then you follow these rules voluntarily. If you don't want to follow these rules, you are free to act as independent citizens outside the laws defining corporations. Good luck with that.

jrs235• 2 years ago

I agree. Government recognized corporations are formed/created "under" the government in cooperation with the "owners". In exchange for agreeing to being "under" the laws of the government and being regulated by the government the owners get limited liability. If humans don't want that privilege, they are more than welcome to operate under full liability and open up all their assets to any claims made against them...

sabarn018• 2 years ago

This is framed in a very specific way. The real question is how much latitude administrative agencies should be given. Chevron says a lot and it says that they don't have to be consistent, nor do they have to even meet the plain meaning of the legislation. The issue this causes is it allows congress to not legislate, but pass the buck to the administrate agency. Congress has been dysfunctional for so long we have come to expect it, but it doesn't mean it’s good for our system.

If congress wants something regulated, they should pass a law and give guidance and the agency should have to meet the clear meaning of the law until its changed by congress. In general, a new president shouldn't affect how agencies implement the will of congress but chevron kinda implicitly allows this. There are lots of regulations that may be swept away if we do away with Chevron but I think it will make the system more accountable and force congress to do its job.

toss13• 2 years ago

Perhaps, but it is key to keep in mind the direction of the push and the trend here — this is strongly anti-democratic and pro-authoritarain.

To gauge democracy, examine how power is distributed among the institutions, both within and outside of govt.

In democracies, there is substantial or complete independence between the branches of govt — legislative, judicial, and executive, and portions of the executive, and various societal organizations — industry, academy, religions, social groups, sport, etc.

Under authoritarianism, all of the branches of govt and the societal organizations are bent to the serve the ruling group.

This is obviously an attempt by Musk, et. al. on these govt agencies to either eliminate them, or ensure that their will is subject to the whims of these would-be oligarchs. In short, it's a power grab, attempting to take a step towards turning workers back into serfs.

sabarn018• 2 years ago

I view it as an effort to restore congress's power which it has frittered away. Congress is the most democratic institution we have and it gets refreshed every 2 years. The thing I want to happen is that there is a way to assure that the elected portion of government, the congress, gets to set our policy not unelected administrate officials.

You also need to view this from both sides. The more freedom of action the agencies have the more they are effectively tools of the president. When you like the president that may seem great, but you always need to look at government power though the lense of the worst person you can image having that power.

tivert• 2 years ago

In democracies, there is substantial or complete independence between the branches of govt — legislative, judicial, and executive

I don't think that's true at all, and I believe separation of powers is (to large degree) and Americanism.

I think most democracies lack or have very weak separation of powers, and are ruled under a principle of legislative supremacy.

That's pretty clear in the UK (where parliamentary supremacy is a bedrock principle of their unwritten constitution), and I believe in Napoleonic law countries there's no sense where a court can strike down a law as "unconstitutional," because I understand courts there aren't bound by precedent in the same way common law courts are.

303uru2• 2 years ago

If congress wants something regulated, they should pass a law and give guidance

I largely disagree. Congress did it's job in creating agencies and outlining their domain. I don't want a bunch of politicians creating regulation on drug approvals for instance, I want physicians and pharmacists doing that. I think the past few years have proven this, the supreme court, congress and executive fudging around with whether or not drugs are safe and efficacious has been a total shitshow.

Having professionals in their respective fields drive agencies is the only way you even come close to keeping up in the modern world. I cannot even imagine a world in which all agency policy shifts drastically every 2-4 years as different administrations come and go. That would absolutely wreck the US.

sabarn018• 2 years ago

But it shift now every 4 years with the presidential election. Our system is based on congress writing legislation and the administration implementing that legislation. As it stands now agencies can disagree with their own previous rulings just because a new administration came in.

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

[dupe]

what happened to that other one? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39218463

the__alchemist• 2 years ago

The linked thread is marked "Flagged" and "Dead"

fsflover• 2 years ago

You could hit "vouch" button to restore that thread.

U.S. Corporations Are Openly Trying to Destroy Core Public Institutions

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