Microblog Memes

Also, let’s be real, regulating Capitalism does not work (look around).

*looks around*

It seems to work fine around me. I peeked at your profile to confirm my assumption that you're American, and it seems I'm correct. I'd say it's partly a cultural issue in your country. The whole rugged individualism thing leads to a whole lot of anti-regulation sentiment. In my country even the ultraconservative "let's throw the gays in the oven and deport all black people to Africa" party isn't considering privatizing healthcare or education. The classical liberals are considering this, but this is where having a sane election system comes in. Since neither the conservatives nor the socdems agree, it's pretty hard for them to enact anything even if they do win an election, because "winning" an election usually means like ~30-40% of parliament seats and the ruling coalition is always a minimum of 2 parties, often 3. Plus the president's one and only power is that he can tell them to fuck off if a law seems unreasonable.

We currently have people from 6 parties in parliament, plus some people who were either thrown out of their party, or left it willingly.

We're pretty good at making noise if we don't like something, and while a lot of people complain about our MPs and ministers getting paid so much, it means they can live well enough without taking bribes. Party donations have limits that can get people into actual trouble if exceeded, and individual campaign donations aren't a thing. Political corruption gets the party fined and potentially individuals punished too. Even in municipal government corruption cases. There was a case that took several years, where a businessman approached a politician in the same party as the capital city's mayor, implying that if the mayor were to reduce certain legal costs on the department store his company was building, the party would receive a major donation - which it then did. The party got fined nearly 10x what they made from this deal, and two people received probationary sentences. This party, formerly a major player, can now barely afford their next election campaign. The company that owns the future department store has been fined more than once for not getting it done as fast as promised - because it's in a prominent location along the promenade.

We have tons of consumer protection laws too. Plus a government entity for consumer protection so you don't have to hire a lawyer and go to court to get your justice in a lot of cases. Similar for employment rights, etc. Fire someone without a paper trail to prove their incompetence or malice? You'll be paying them a hefty severance.