5 ms·

Why not go all the way and merge all companies into 1 big one. Being born on the wrong side of the iron curtain I already saw economy based on monopolies. Comm

Why not go all the way and merge all companies into 1 big one. Being born on the wrong side of the iron curtain I already saw economy based on monopolies. Communism failed because prices were centrally set. We knew how to build useful things (that don't break 1 day after warranty) but not which ones to build and how many. (wiki) A price signal is information conveyed to consumers and producers, via the price charged for a product or service, which provides a signal to increase or decrease supply or demand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_signal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_signal

henrik_w 9y ago
Relevant story from The Onion (almost 20 years ago): "Just Six Corporations Remain" https://www.theonion.com/just-six-corporations-remain-1819564741 https://www.theonion.com/just-six-corporations-remain-181956...
- _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
  "Bill Clinton, chief executive of U.S. Government, a division of MCI-WorldCom, praised Monday's merger as 'an excellent move.'"
- bluthru 9y ago
  "Proud to be one of America's 8 companies." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFKoGtgg6Mo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFKoGtgg6Mo
bighi 9y ago
That's what I've been saying for a long time. Some people say "it's just capitalism working as intended", but that's not exactly true. A lot of the mechanisms of capitalism depend on competition. Capitalism without competition is no different from Communism or any other system in which one party rules supreme.
- vidarh 9y ago
  Incidentally Marx argument for why he believed a revolution would eventually become inevitable also depends entirely on competition: He argued that it is the ongoing effectivisation of capitalism through competition that will eventually trigger revolutions by making too many people unemployed and/or destitute.
- bluthru 9y ago
  This is why I question the idea that large social networks should be able to remove whatever they want. It would be nice if there were consumer protection laws to help balance the scales a bit. For example, some of YouTube's censorship and demonetization seem pretty aggressive.
danmaz74 9y ago
Ironically, capitalism converging to few monopolies or quasi-monopolies controlling everything was one of the big arguments anti-capitalists used to use when I was younger: that if it's got to be monopolies or quasi-monopolies, then it's better if they are State-controlled monopolies.
- jandrese 9y ago
  State controlled is little better than privately held. In a public company only people who own a stake get a vote, and their vote is proportional to how much of a stake they own (the rich get most of the votes). In a State owned company every taxpayer is a stakeholder, the main difference being that you get exactly 1 vote no matter how much you pay in taxes. But voting is a very inefficient way to steer a company, private or public. Markets are orders of magnitude more efficient. That's why we try to avoid monopolies as much as possible. Sometimes it doesn't make sense and that's why we have heavily regulated industries like water/power delivery, fire, police, etc... In most cases though you want to keep a competitive marketplace going to force companies to serve their customers properly. Although capitalism is the best system by far for managing resources it has flaws. It naturally concentrates power (money) at the top over time and chokes itself to death. That's why there needs to be an independent entity (the government) that steps in and breaks up the ossified wealth to keep the system from dying.
  - jimmaswell 9y ago
    It really seems to me that state-run monopolies are much more than "little" better than free-market monopolies in practice today. Compare the service from a private ISP that's the only provider in a region to how well municipal broadband works out. You've also probably never sent a plain letter through UPS or Fedex, even though neither of those is a monopoly yet the USPS is essentially a state run monopoly on that kind of mail - if state run monopolies are supposed to be so much less efficient than private companies in competition then people should be sending all their letters through those instead of USPS.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
antisthenes 9y ago
> Communism failed because prices were centrally set. We knew how to build useful things (that don't break 1 day after warranty) but not which ones to build and how many. A problem easily solved with modern technology. There's nothing inherent in communism or capitalism that prevents or enables, respectively, the use of price signals.
- chiaro 9y ago
  The first chapter of Marx' capital directly sets up this inherency by means of his labor theory of value, along these lines.

henrik_w 9y ago

Relevant story from The Onion (almost 20 years ago): "Just Six Corporations Remain" https://www.theonion.com/just-six-corporations-remain-1819564741 https://www.theonion.com/just-six-corporations-remain-181956...

_Codemonkeyism 9y ago
"Bill Clinton, chief executive of U.S. Government, a division of MCI-WorldCom, praised Monday's merger as 'an excellent move.'"
bluthru 9y ago
"Proud to be one of America's 8 companies." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFKoGtgg6Mo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFKoGtgg6Mo

bighi 9y ago

That's what I've been saying for a long time. Some people say "it's just capitalism working as intended", but that's not exactly true. A lot of the mechanisms of capitalism depend on competition. Capitalism without competition is no different from Communism or any other system in which one party rules supreme.

vidarh 9y ago
Incidentally Marx argument for why he believed a revolution would eventually become inevitable also depends entirely on competition: He argued that it is the ongoing effectivisation of capitalism through competition that will eventually trigger revolutions by making too many people unemployed and/or destitute.
bluthru 9y ago
This is why I question the idea that large social networks should be able to remove whatever they want. It would be nice if there were consumer protection laws to help balance the scales a bit. For example, some of YouTube's censorship and demonetization seem pretty aggressive.

danmaz74 9y ago

Ironically, capitalism converging to few monopolies or quasi-monopolies controlling everything was one of the big arguments anti-capitalists used to use when I was younger: that if it's got to be monopolies or quasi-monopolies, then it's better if they are State-controlled monopolies.

jandrese 9y ago
State controlled is little better than privately held. In a public company only people who own a stake get a vote, and their vote is proportional to how much of a stake they own (the rich get most of the votes). In a State owned company every taxpayer is a stakeholder, the main difference being that you get exactly 1 vote no matter how much you pay in taxes. But voting is a very inefficient way to steer a company, private or public. Markets are orders of magnitude more efficient. That's why we try to avoid monopolies as much as possible. Sometimes it doesn't make sense and that's why we have heavily regulated industries like water/power delivery, fire, police, etc... In most cases though you want to keep a competitive marketplace going to force companies to serve their customers properly. Although capitalism is the best system by far for managing resources it has flaws. It naturally concentrates power (money) at the top over time and chokes itself to death. That's why there needs to be an independent entity (the government) that steps in and breaks up the ossified wealth to keep the system from dying.
- jimmaswell 9y ago
  It really seems to me that state-run monopolies are much more than "little" better than free-market monopolies in practice today. Compare the service from a private ISP that's the only provider in a region to how well municipal broadband works out. You've also probably never sent a plain letter through UPS or Fedex, even though neither of those is a monopoly yet the USPS is essentially a state run monopoly on that kind of mail - if state run monopolies are supposed to be so much less efficient than private companies in competition then people should be sending all their letters through those instead of USPS.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

antisthenes 9y ago

> Communism failed because prices were centrally set. We knew how to build useful things (that don't break 1 day after warranty) but not which ones to build and how many. A problem easily solved with modern technology. There's nothing inherent in communism or capitalism that prevents or enables, respectively, the use of price signals.

chiaro 9y ago
The first chapter of Marx' capital directly sets up this inherency by means of his labor theory of value, along these lines.