The state has a moral obligation to regulate business

Definitions:Govern - to control, direct, or strongly influence the actions and conduct of. .. to exercise continuous sovereign authority over. [1] Argument 1: Power necessitates check and balanceMy first argument will center around this syllogism:P1: Corporations have power P2: Whatever has power, needs to be checked in some way. C: Corporations need to be checked P1 - Corporations have power Modern society is heavily dependent on the information, services, and products that corporations provide us with. For example, General Electric ranks second on the most powerful corporation in the world. Existing since the startof the 20th century, it has a virtual monopoly on electrical services [2] [3]. Google, buying and owning some of the most famous and successful names in the online world, such as Youtube, has tremendous influence on the internet [4]. We have powerful Banking corporations in which we entrust our money. We have corporations from MSNBC to FOX, CNN, New York Times, Time Magazine, all to which we are reliant for accurate information, and transitively suseptible to deceit. We have business empires like Wal-Mart from which we buy our food, and multinational giants like McDonalds that serve us food. We cannot even acquire clean water without referring to water companies, waterfilter brands, and bottled water providers like Poland Spring. In short, it is evident that the lives of what will be referred to as "the general public" or GP, is under an implicit control by big business. "Corporations are able to reinforce their influence over the global economy by spending vast sums of money affecting political decisions, and public opinion. This level and type of corporate activity is ultimately to the detriment of democracy, society and the environment" [5] They have the power and discretion over the GP's access to basic necessities like food and water. They have the power and discretion to limit as they wish the GP's knowledge. They have the power to control the GP's money, health, and opportunity at success. That said, I cannot see how anyone could deny that a massive margin of power is shifted in the hands of the corporate world. P2: Whatever has power, needs to be checked in some way It could be said that the corporate world is a pseudo-government with the power to govern. Under the definition I put up earlier, this claim would be accurate. The statute assumed by Consent Theory is that any kind of government derives its powers from the consent of the governed [6]. If a wide array of corporations are to implicitly coerce the general public, they lack the right to do so. As such, the government, the rightful authority, should excercise it's own power to mitigate the reach of business. Ultimately, neither McDonalds, nor Google, nor Wal-Mart, or any other axis of economic power have the consent of the GP to be so powerful and domineering in their lives. They are unauthorized authorities. C: Corporations need to be checkedThe final conclusion follows that the Government is given the power to govern the lives of the people, but nothing at no point in the history of intelligent human interaction has given businesses the power to do the same. As such, the rightful law ought to prevent any other societal structure from reaching its own level of influence without due consent. Argument 2: The Lockean Proviso and the necessity to enforce itAs Locke wrote:"Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land, by improving it, any prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough and as good left, and more than the yet unprovided could use. So that, in effect, there was never the less left for others because of his enclosure for himself. For he that leaves as much as another can make use of does as good as take nothing at all. Nobody could think himself injured by the drinking of another man, though he took a good draught, who had a whole river of the same water left him to quench his thirst. And the case of land and water, where there is enough of both, is perfectly the same. " —Second Treatise of Government, Chapter V, paragraph 33 [7]. It essentially states that the Earth and its resources are commonly owned among man, so the acquisition of any of it is only permissible if enough is left and as good is left for others. Businesses that sell products essentially plunder the raw materials from the Earth. However, to restrict the sale of those items, discriminate against consumer minorities, or make the prices unreasonably high would violate the Lockean Proviso, as it neither leaves enough nor as good of those materials for others. Businesses have claimed a monopoly on many of the natural resources and materials of the world, and the only provision preventing this action from being a moral atrocity (theft in the making), is the addition that these materials are in turn made accessible to the public. The corporate world unchecked in the playground of free market is given the option to be moral or immoral with its products, a condition of choice that is unacceptable in a free and fair society. Government is endowed with the authority and obligation to protect the people from harm, exploitation, and threats to liberty. In this sense, the government must be the enforcer of the Lockean Proviso, ensuring that the monopolies taken on these materials don't fall at the expense of the common man. ConclusionIt is not my intention to falsely protray business as evil, rather, I want to show economic anarchy to be against the wellbeing of the general public. Corporations stand as creations of power and influence sometimes equal to that of government itself, and with power comes the necessity of check and balance, and with the creation of private property and monopoly of raw materials, comes a necessity to ensure that the public is not left disadvantaged. As such, regulation is needed to secure liberty and justice for the people. I'll end here for the meanwhile and await my opponent's counter arguments. Sources1. . http://www.merriam-webster.com...2. . http://www.knowledgebase-script.com...3. . http://www.corpwatch.org...4. . http://www.examiner.com...5. . http://www.stwr.org...6. . http://en.wikipedia.org...7. . http://en.wikipedia.org...