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Totally applies to corporations. Applies to any entity capable of pooling and growing wealth. People, families, institutions, social groups... Let's call it "s

Totally applies to corporations. Applies to any entity capable of pooling and growing wealth. People, families, institutions, social groups... Let's call it "super-critical" and "sub-critical". Super-critical is always-positive wealth growth rates, no matter quantity of wealth. This will then always occur (or, according to theory, should always occur). If it's always sub-critical, then you don't have wealth growth, because it never makes sense. I think maybe. So what you want is a transition point at which in order to "grow personal wealth" what you actually have to do is grow /other/ people's wealth (who are below that point)... but then it becomes growing power (social connections and allegiances) rather than monetary power (wealth). And because monetary wealth is actually possible to quantify and thus measure, account for, examine, track, etc - it's arguably better, as we call use of that power "corruption". In which case the only known solution is the periodic upheaval.

RangerScience 11y ago
Hmm. Which then leads me to think - Is there a way to institutionalize the periodic upheaval? Or at least prevent the violence and/or civilizational collapse? But, wasn't that part of the point of the US system - getting closer to a periodic / on-going non-violent revolution?
mindcrime 11y ago
Applies to any entity capable of pooling and growing wealth. People, families, institutions, social groups... Yes, but not to an absolute degree. Go back and look at a list of the "Fortune 500" (or something equivalent) from, say, 1900. I believe you'll find that most of those companies no longer even exist at all. Likewise if you enumerate a list of the richest people in the world from that era, their grand-children (or great grand children, whatever) aren't necessarily in corresponding positions in the modern "richest people in the world" list. One thing that the discussions often seem to neglect to consider, is the impact of disruptive (sorry, it's the only word that made sense here) technological change. New technologies come along and create a sort of "upheaval" (something like Schumpeterian "creative destruction") that "resets" things periodically. There are also "dis-economies" of scale where size works against a firm's ability to grow larger and more profitable.
- RangerScience 11y ago
  Oh, absolutely. Families are interesting because you have the generational laziness issue - All you need is one person in the chain to lose the wealth, and it's gone. Disruptive technologies, social changes, and legal changes could be considered forms of "periodic, non-violent revolution". Dis-economies would then be built-in inflection points where you don't need an out-of-context solution (aka, laws) to create a sub-critical point for wealth growth. Interesting, didn't know that happened. Can you point me at some examples? Re: Disruptive - It may have become startup corporate jargon, but it still makes sense. Look up something called the OODA loop, and note that according to it, a "good maneuver" doesn't have to be one that's successful or further your goals, it can just be one that changes the playing field faster than your opponents can react.
  - mindcrime 11y ago
    Dis-economies would then be built-in inflection points where you don't need an out-of-context solution (aka, laws) to create a sub-critical point for wealth growth. Interesting, didn't know that happened. Can you point me at some examples? The idea of a "dis-economy of scale as inflection point" is probably valid, but I'm not actually sure that I know of a specific example. It's also muddled up with the technological change issue, as a new technology comes along, and a smaller, nimbler company is more able to adopt and commercialize that technology than a larger, more bureaucracy bound company. Look up something called the OODA loop, and note that according to it, a "good maneuver" doesn't have to be one that's successful or further your goals, it can just be one that changes the playing field faster than your opponents can react. Yep, I'm a big fan of that concept myself.

RangerScience 11y ago

Hmm. Which then leads me to think - Is there a way to institutionalize the periodic upheaval? Or at least prevent the violence and/or civilizational collapse? But, wasn't that part of the point of the US system - getting closer to a periodic / on-going non-violent revolution?

mindcrime 11y ago

Applies to any entity capable of pooling and growing wealth. People, families, institutions, social groups... Yes, but not to an absolute degree. Go back and look at a list of the "Fortune 500" (or something equivalent) from, say, 1900. I believe you'll find that most of those companies no longer even exist at all. Likewise if you enumerate a list of the richest people in the world from that era, their grand-children (or great grand children, whatever) aren't necessarily in corresponding positions in the modern "richest people in the world" list. One thing that the discussions often seem to neglect to consider, is the impact of disruptive (sorry, it's the only word that made sense here) technological change. New technologies come along and create a sort of "upheaval" (something like Schumpeterian "creative destruction") that "resets" things periodically. There are also "dis-economies" of scale where size works against a firm's ability to grow larger and more profitable.

RangerScience 11y ago
Oh, absolutely. Families are interesting because you have the generational laziness issue - All you need is one person in the chain to lose the wealth, and it's gone. Disruptive technologies, social changes, and legal changes could be considered forms of "periodic, non-violent revolution". Dis-economies would then be built-in inflection points where you don't need an out-of-context solution (aka, laws) to create a sub-critical point for wealth growth. Interesting, didn't know that happened. Can you point me at some examples? Re: Disruptive - It may have become startup corporate jargon, but it still makes sense. Look up something called the OODA loop, and note that according to it, a "good maneuver" doesn't have to be one that's successful or further your goals, it can just be one that changes the playing field faster than your opponents can react.
- mindcrime 11y ago
  Dis-economies would then be built-in inflection points where you don't need an out-of-context solution (aka, laws) to create a sub-critical point for wealth growth. Interesting, didn't know that happened. Can you point me at some examples? The idea of a "dis-economy of scale as inflection point" is probably valid, but I'm not actually sure that I know of a specific example. It's also muddled up with the technological change issue, as a new technology comes along, and a smaller, nimbler company is more able to adopt and commercialize that technology than a larger, more bureaucracy bound company. Look up something called the OODA loop, and note that according to it, a "good maneuver" doesn't have to be one that's successful or further your goals, it can just be one that changes the playing field faster than your opponents can react. Yep, I'm a big fan of that concept myself.