How Do We Make The State's Power To Do Things Less ?

I've said that I want to respond to interesting responses to the original Kos article on being a libertarian Democrat. Here's one from samizdata.net by Perry de Havilland:

"And there you have one of the classical error of the left: the idea that corporations have great power to coerce in and of themselves. Now it is true that corporations often behave disgracefully (no one has ever accused Samizdata of being soft of corporate wickedness or being reflexively well disposed towards Big Biz) but the overwhelming way they do this is by using their vast wealth to manipulate the power of the state in their favour. When the state uses the power of eminent domain to take land from people so a wealthy corporation can profit from it, that is an example of state power. When corporations get subsidies and regulations which make it harder for new market entrants to compete with them, that is an example of state power. When corporations use laws to bust unions and restrict reasonable rights of workers to organise, that is an example of state power.

Large corporations can coerce people because they can manipulate excessively mighty state power. The problem is the amount and scope of coersive power that the state has been allowed to accumulate. Make the state's power to do things less and you make large corporations less able to coerce people as an inevitable consequence. It is just a variant of the notion that the only way to stop corruption in high places is to get rid of high places. Kos does not have to agree with that (and he surely does not) but then that is one the main notions underpinning what makes a libertarian a libertarian."

What does it mean to say that you want to make the state's power to do things less? The whole point is that corporations have the power to influence the government because they have so much money, power, and influence, and you need countervailing power to oppose it. For example, laws to limit this power. Perhaps it simply takes a magic spell to declare corporations inert. There is no magic bullet to oppose this ability of corporations to influence government. It takes an organized opposition. There is no such thing in the real world as simply declaring the state have less power.

There is also the problem of monopolies, which I accept, but many libertarians don't.

But the real difference is now clear. The libertarian Democrat lives in the real world. In that world, large corporations will try and influence the government. There is no such thing as declaring small government. There is concerted opposition to the accumulation and use of that power to influence government. Such an opposition will need to use laws to oppose such influence on the government. That opposition will involve government action, action that is effective. What is determined to be effective is what works in the real world. The Democratic responses to that ability to influence government have arisen in the real world to oppose that power and influence.

The only way to make the state's power to do things less is to have countervailing powers to balance and confront such accumulations of power. In this world, there is no such thing as in and of itself.