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Great metaphor. To play devil's advocate: if only one or two companies can satisfactorily make cars, should other less capable/affluent manufactures accept defe
by Liquix 7y ago
Great metaphor. To play devil's advocate: if only one or two companies can satisfactorily make cars, should other less capable/affluent manufactures accept defeat and hand over the automobile market to them? Look for another line of business to break into?
There's no question that Amazon and Google are the most capable (perhaps the only viable) choices for a contract of this scope. But giving them 10 billion dollars and relative corporate invinciblity (Amazon will not go under unless the US government decides so/collapses) is just exacerbating the problem. A government concerned with preserving the free market (and thus the prosperity/happiness of their citizens) should be stimulating smaller competitors, not funneling all available resources to a small handful of megacorps they're in bed with.
- abakker 7y agoThe trouble is, the government gets constant complaints about services not working, or not being up to par with the public. The government should probably not be a proving ground for manufacturers that have not successfully delivered before. Instead, private enterprise can do that, and success with private enterprises should be a qualifying event for future public delivery. An interesting observation, though, might be that consumer/public safety are opposed in some form to a truly competitive market. many companies could build vehicles that couldn't meet emissions or crash test requirements. But, if we want to guarantee those things, then it necessarily reduces the competitive pool to those enterprises willing to invest to be able to meet those standards. It is probably not of primary significance, but I like how policies aimed at saving consumers/the public from harm can also cause the public harm in the form of reduced competition and increased income inequality down the road.
- toyg 7y ago> consumer/public safety are opposed in some form to a truly competitive market. I had a relative in the chemical industry, and she was always bitching about this: "small players can never match the big ones in certain areas, because they can not afford the red-tape to certify this or that". On the other hand, these regulations exist for a reason - most legislators don't wake up in the morning excited to ban some obscure compound. I'd rather have fewer jobs and money, if I can be sure I won't be poisoned so that someone else can make a quick buck.
- solidasparagus 7y agoGoogle did not big on JEDI and it's questionable whether they would have been able to compete with AWS and Azure if they had.
- dragonwriter 7y ago> There's no question that Amazon and Google are the most capable (perhaps the only viable) choices for a contract of this scope. But giving them 10 billion dollars and relative corporate invinciblity (Amazon will not go under unless the US government decides so/collapses) is just exacerbating the problem. it may be exacerbating a problem within the FTC’s domain of responsibility for market competition, but defense (or government more generally) procurement, even in an ideal world , would not involve systematic accommodation for providers less capable of delivering the requirements. > A government concerned with preserving the free market (and thus the prosperity/happiness of their citizens) should be stimulating smaller competitors A government concerned with maintaining free markets will, by definition, buy things from the market based on most cost effective fit for needs, not choosing which vendors should be promoted on other grounds. What you are suggesting may be promoting some concept of healthy markets at the direct expense of free markets by direct government intervention, but it's not helping free markets.