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Hmmmmm. I've often wondered about the contradiction wherein it's argued that the economy thrives on competition and yet corporations larger than many nation st

Hmmmmm. I've often wondered about the contradiction wherein it's argued that the economy thrives on competition and yet corporations larger than many nation states never apply the same model internally. (I'm aware there are efforts in some companies at creating "internal markets" but never close to the scale of market forces that exist externally to the company)

AmericanChopper 9y ago
Resource allocation is the single hardest problem to address in large organisations, and there’s numerous cases of companies withering and dying because they failed to properly align their resource allocation with market forces. Except withering and dying for a company is not a humanitarian crisis, but it is for a country. A company can also fire an underperforming team member, or ditch an entire department. Where as terminating underperforming citizens, or unneeded communities is generally frowned upon.
- bad-joke 9y ago
  This is why some strains of socialism advocate a regulated market wherein businesses can freely experiment, then the optimal path is nationalized. Free market or centralized economy, at the end of the day someone is making an executive decision about how resources are allocated. Whether you believe that executive person (or committee) should be acting in the best interests of the public or a group of shareholders is a matter of principle, not logistics.
  - AmericanChopper 9y ago
    This creates exactly the same set of problems. A CEO has to compete with other CEOs, if they don’t do so efficiently they will fail and another will take their place. A government committe doesn’t have to compete with anybody, if they fail, you just end up with a society that gradually deteriorates. A CEO also has to deal with market forces, a government committe does not. A government committe doesn’t have to produce goods that people want, they only have to align their resource allocation with the central plan, as their country is gradually eroded underneath them. Your argument is trying to have its cake and eat it too, it doesn’t resolve any of the inefficiency of central planning, it just shifts it down the road a bit.
    - smallnamespace 9y ago
      > A government committe doesn’t have to compete with anybody In theory, a failing government is replaced by a different government. In practice, whether voters successfully identify problems and pick a better winner is an open question.
      - AmericanChopper 9y ago
        Even if they did, this proposal is simply a much less efficient alternative to free market competition.
smaddox 9y ago
Amazon does apply that model internally. This is arguably why Amazon is as successful as it is: Bezos turns internal products into external products. AWS started as an internal product. In order to keep it competitive with external offerings, they opened it up to external customers. If AWS fails to compete in the market, then Amazon knows it can get a better price by outsourcing.

AmericanChopper 9y ago

Resource allocation is the single hardest problem to address in large organisations, and there’s numerous cases of companies withering and dying because they failed to properly align their resource allocation with market forces. Except withering and dying for a company is not a humanitarian crisis, but it is for a country. A company can also fire an underperforming team member, or ditch an entire department. Where as terminating underperforming citizens, or unneeded communities is generally frowned upon.

bad-joke 9y ago
This is why some strains of socialism advocate a regulated market wherein businesses can freely experiment, then the optimal path is nationalized. Free market or centralized economy, at the end of the day someone is making an executive decision about how resources are allocated. Whether you believe that executive person (or committee) should be acting in the best interests of the public or a group of shareholders is a matter of principle, not logistics.
- AmericanChopper 9y ago
  This creates exactly the same set of problems. A CEO has to compete with other CEOs, if they don’t do so efficiently they will fail and another will take their place. A government committe doesn’t have to compete with anybody, if they fail, you just end up with a society that gradually deteriorates. A CEO also has to deal with market forces, a government committe does not. A government committe doesn’t have to produce goods that people want, they only have to align their resource allocation with the central plan, as their country is gradually eroded underneath them. Your argument is trying to have its cake and eat it too, it doesn’t resolve any of the inefficiency of central planning, it just shifts it down the road a bit.
  - smallnamespace 9y ago
    > A government committe doesn’t have to compete with anybody In theory, a failing government is replaced by a different government. In practice, whether voters successfully identify problems and pick a better winner is an open question.
    - AmericanChopper 9y ago
      Even if they did, this proposal is simply a much less efficient alternative to free market competition.

smaddox 9y ago

Amazon does apply that model internally. This is arguably why Amazon is as successful as it is: Bezos turns internal products into external products. AWS started as an internal product. In order to keep it competitive with external offerings, they opened it up to external customers. If AWS fails to compete in the market, then Amazon knows it can get a better price by outsourcing.