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Is it a good or a bad thing when multinational corporations step in and take the place of government?
by opportune 8y ago
Is it a good or a bad thing when multinational corporations step in and take the place of government?
- jim-jim-jim 8y agoBad.
- knodi 8y agoNot sure why you're getting down voted but it is bad because the government is not doing this and we're accepting it.
- andrew_ 8y agoI would wager that it's because there are folks who applaud the private sector for stepping in on a big problem. I would argue it's a general positive when we don't have to rely on government to solve all of our problems.
- sdinsn 8y agoBut now we're relying on Microsoft to solve our problems. How is that any better?
- cronix 8y agoSomething might actually get done
- sdinsn 8y ago> might Exactly. Why put our eggs in MSFT's basket?
- ralusek 8y agoBecause nobody is being forced to fund it, as is the case with the state. And the state would staff the administration of the new construction with pensioned state bureaucrats, whose pensions are already bankrupting California. Unfunded state liabilities from pensions are somewhere between 333 billion and 1 trillion, depending on who you ask. And then once constructed, there would be forces wholly removed from the natural demands of the population, as represented immediately by the encompassing markets, determining how the housing is to evolve over time. People should be much more reserved than they are in terms of handing things over to the state, there is much to be lost.
- sdinsn 8y ago> whose pensions are already bankrupting California That is not true. California has a budget surplus right now...
- King-Aaron 8y agoI tend to agree, but also take the opinion that if the comment above had expanded on this, the reaction wouldn't be as negative
- samatman 8y agoBecause the expectation on HN is that you won’t make content-free posts. It’s not a poll. One is expected to answer “bad, because...”, as you did.
- NeonVice 8y agoIt depends. Do you believe that it is the role of government to build new housing or is it their role to create an environment that encourages new building supply? Is new housing not being built because of government regulation that deters new building or certain types of buildings?
- remarkEon 8y agoBoth? I think in places like SF or Seattle it’s a combination of government regulation and zoning rules, and idle capital. But at the same time I don’t see why government itself can’t invest in building things like transportation infrastructure to support the increased density (assuming density is something we want - I’m not entirely convinced it is). Over the last few decades the default state appears to have been “build up” rather than “build up where needed, and out where you can”. Cities from previous iterations of civilization appear to have done the latter, while we mostly just do the former here in the states (over recent decades). LA could maybe be considered an exception, however it’s zoning rules are draconian and density seems to be the way forward less some major overhaul.
- bobthepanda 8y agoSeattle is in the midst of one of America’s largest transit expansions, to spend $50B+ in 40 years. Pretty much all cities are aggressively zoning around their light rail stations; for example. The suburb of Lynwood has zoning allowing up to 350 feet in height around their stop. The problem is that these things take time, mostly because this isn’t China and Seattle doesn’t have hundreds of billions in Treasuries to do what it wants, nor is it willing to conspire using shady financial vehicles like Chinese local governments.
- icebraining 8y agoWhile the rate has decreased, "sprawl continues to be pervasive and continues to increase" in the majority of US metropolitan areas, and "2010 represents the first time that more people lived in lower density than higher density tracts in metropolitan America": http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1131&context=cate http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11...
- atwebb 8y agoDepends on if you have to pay rent with company scrip.
- dfischer 8y agoGood - reacts quicker to market demands and is directly incentivized by opportunity therefore creating jobs.
- zanny 8y agoNothing implicitly makes a government faster or slower than a corporation. Corporate charters are practically franchised private statehood where your voting public is your shareholders and they elect a board of directors to represent them. If your corporate charter can be "quick" then so can your constitution. And governments are absolutely incentivized by opportunity. The prosperity of the people is their entire job. Its why you have a state to begin with. If its unable to fulfill that objective, get a new government.
- dfischer 8y agoIn order to be quick you have to be properly incentivized. I disagree that the prosperity of people is a government workers job by choice; thus they won't be incentivized to outperform a corporation. I'm sure there's people that do care about that, but it's certainly not the majority and directly defies individuality.
- bobthepanda 8y agoThis depends on local context. For example, in Singapore civil service has much higher prestige and merit based pay, thus the Singaporean government is one of the most effective in the world.
- dfischer 8y agoYeah, there's definitely room for inspiration and improvement. Looking forward to innovative structures that let us evolve more efficiently.
- mc32 8y agoIt's a bad sign. It's a sign the gov has dropped the ball. Government should be doing this. This is their job, it's in their purview to account for growth and address it, one way or another, but not ignore it or frustrate it.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- skookumchuck 8y agoEnjoy! https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/03/the-disappearing-mass-housing-of-the-soviet-union/518868/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/03/the-disappearing-mass...
- distances 8y agoPerhaps not an opinion shared by everyone, but even Khrushchyovkas would be better than a housing crisis. Affordable housing is a basic need. Building these in scale would lead to a lot of other problems, but if a city is otherwise incapable to accommodate people, then the city gets those other problems.
- Fellshard 8y agoTell that to the city of Gyumri, Armenia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXDDW9WYrWE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXDDW9WYrWE
- Novashi 8y agoThe US Government is currently dysfunctional, so at least someone is making affordable housing.
- Analemma_ 8y agoIf this was the Bay Area, I would be inclined to worry, but the governments of Seattle and the surrounding towns, while far from perfect, are not nearly as dysfunctional as San Francisco's. We actually are building tons of new housing, areas are getting upzoned to allow denser construction in areas that previously only allowed single-family units, and there is lots of investment in public transit (i.e. ST3). This seems more like Microsoft chipping in to help out even more, rather than taking it upon themselves to fix a broken government. (Although see my other comment regarding how useful this can actually be in practice)
- sdinsn 8y agoBad- when times get bad (recession) companies will stop doing these things. If people rely on them for important services (like housing), then they'll be even more screwed.
- scarface74 8y agoAnd depending on who is running the government, the government won’t help people who need it either...
- InclinedPlane 8y agoGood for short-term results, bad at the degree to which it indicates our institutions are ineffectual and broken. America is a rich nation, Seattle is a rich city. With reasonable taxation and competent government we could easily maintain decent metropolitan infrastructure and services (mass transit, schools, clean water) as well as provide affordable housing, food security for everyone, etc.
- ralusek 8y agoIt is always a good thing if something can be solved directly by the citizens without the use of force, i.e. state intervention. It is indicative of a prosperous economy, and possibly of high social capital and cohesion. The proper use of the state should really only be as a reluctant override meant to address explicit market failures, such as monopolies and collusion and negative externalities. Unfortunately, that isn't the way that most people view the role of government anymore, and are increasingly content to see it as a consequence-free button for moral authoritarianism.
- ams6110 8y agoI say it's usually good. I think government is usually the most expensive, highest overhead, least competent, and lowest quality way to get anything done.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago> I think government is usually the most expensive, highest overhead, least competent, and lowest quality way to get anything done. Do you have concrete examples? Everything I can think of points to the opposite.
- AnthonyMouse 8y agoThe Department of Defense is probably the canonical example. But closer to the topic, look at the government housing programs. Billions of dollars to build housing projects that do effectively nothing to lower the overall market price of housing, while creating slums by concentrating poverty in specific locations, while actively making the actual problem worse with zoning rules.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago> The Department of Defense is probably the canonical example. Because they outsource to a bunch of private contractors, no?
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago> Because they outsource to a bunch of private contractors, no? No. The government contracting process is as broken as anything else, but hurry up and wait, FUBAR and SNAFU did not originate at Lockheed Martin. We don't have major military bases in states with powerful legislators because that's what makes the most strategic sense from a military perspective. The VA healthcare system is not a disorganized mess primarily as a result of contractors. It's a systemic issue with any large bureaucracy, which is why small and local governments are more efficient than large and centralized ones. It's also why small and medium businesses are more efficient than huge conglomerates. And there is no bureaucracy larger than the US government. People like to compare their cash on hand with Apple's, but governments don't hoard cash like corporations do (and corporations only do it because of dumb tax policies). The US federal budget is around six times Apple's market cap, much less their own annual budget.
- skookumchuck 8y agoDepends on whether you prefer to live in Soviet bloc housing or not.
- rectang 8y agoConcentration of power is always bad, no matter where that power is concentrated.
- Synaesthesia 8y agoBad. We’re going from an institution which - at least theoretically - the population has some say in, to one which is completely privately owned and doesn’t have to answer to the public at all.
- aylmao 8y agoNot only does it not answer to the public, it goes a step further-- one that can be sued by it's shareholders if it acts against their interests (ei, yield a profit).
- icebraining 8y agoThey still have to abide by the laws set by the public institution.
- Synaesthesia 8y agoThat’s true. But there are fewer of these regulations and they’re very large powerful entities only interested in profit.
- stale2002 8y agoIt is bad when government is so bad at it's job that it requires companies to do it, yes. But it is a good thing that someone is solving the problem.
- eru 8y agoUsually a good thing. Multinational corporations are typically run very well compared to anything local. See https://www.econlib.org/archives/2016/05/multinationals.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2016/05/multinationals.html for a comparison of multinationals' management to local companies. I don't have stats for local government on hand, but anecdotally, it's common for it to be even worse than local companies.