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As I've noted elsewhere: Private corporations acting in quasi-government ways is risky at best and terrifying at worst. While some of the checks & balances in

• seibelj 7y ago
  And once a corporation takes on the roles of government, it naturally needs to be protected from competition lest the essential government functions it provides get threatened. We shouldn’t be demanding more from our corporations, we should be demanding less. Companies should produce goods and services at the highest quality for the lowest price, and let free citizens choose between them - and if the goods for sale are subpar - let the same free citizens start their own competitor. History is a never ending see-saw, and we are now sawing back towards protectionism, big government, and less freedoms for the individual. At the very least it will once more teach painful lessons to a new generation that doesn’t remember the past.
  • harimau777 7y ago
    Do you think it would be fair to say that corporate capitalism has also taught us painful lessons that we forgot from the past?
    • TaylorAlexander 7y ago
      Its a perfectly reasonable question. HN is so harsh on people who question capitalism. And corporate capitalism in particular is well deserving of criticism.
  • numakerg 7y ago
    >let the same free citizens start their own competitor. Except that starting a competitor often requires far more capital than the incumbents needed to reach their position. I don't support protectionism, but "true free market" economics are an illusion used to prevent and tear down regulations.
    • ttoinou 7y ago
      Would you have examples? Starting SpaceX required far more capital than NASA?
      • coldtea 7y ago
        SpaceX is mainly alive because NASA/government poured tons of money in it, so not exactly the best example: "As a company, their total contracts are worth $12 billion including commercial satellite launches as well as NASA and U.S. government missions. Of that total, $5.5 billion is from government contracts from NASA and the Air Force." Basically what could have been done (and was done, and reached the moon and built the space bus etc) on government money, is now paid to a private constructor to do (plus profits, minus the patents going to the state).
        • TaylorAlexander 7y ago
          Indeed, SpaceX nearly went bankrupt in the early days because they couldn't get a contract until they successfully launched a rocket. That first contract after their first successful launch was from NASA.
          • fragmede 7y ago
            NASA didn't do that out of the goodness of their hearts though. Pound-for-pound (which, to orbit is pretty pricey), SpaceX was cheaper. Blue Origin, a different space corporation, was not even in consideration, but if they had something competitive, NASA would have considered their bid as well. (Tbc, Blue Origin isn't shooting for that market at all, so this is in no way a dig at them.)
  • kennywinker 7y ago
    how on earth would more competition decrease the environmental impact of modern capitalism?
    • TaylorAlexander 7y ago
      Well as much as I am a advocate for converting to a cooperative economy, I do understand that logic. Our corporate capitalism today relies heavily on monopoly like power especially with things like intellectual property and businesses like ISPs. If Comcast was forced to provide commodity access to its network as well as interconnects with other line providers, then the monopoly like power Comcast has over internet access would be dramatically reduced. More competition would enter the market and theoretically lower prices. Or if intellectual property law was significantly weakened then we would see more competition as well.
      • kennywinker 7y ago
        I think you might have misunderstood my comment. I'm arguing that more competition may be good for consumers, it's not doing any favours to the environment. Cheaper stuff means people consume more, more consumption means more environmental damage. Any effort to restructure our society and economies that doesn't put environmental impact first, is the wrong change.
        • TaylorAlexander 7y ago
          Ah! I did misunderstand. Thanks for the explanation!
    • malandrew 7y ago
      > environmental impact Many (but certainly not all) externalities are process waste and an often an opportunity for margins improvement if you can figure out how to eliminate that waste. Now, if you can take those externalities that are not process waste but are still bad for the environment and you can put a price on them that needs to be paid, competition is going to drive businesses to figure out how to reduce the externalities. This is the premise behind buying carbon credits/offsets. The problem is that we don't yet have good ways to price in all externalities into the final cost of goods sold. That should be the problem we tackle.
  • jay_kyburz 7y ago
    I like the idea of multiple small governments competing. Lets have competition in our government departments too.
    • zhoujianfu 7y ago
      For all its issues, that’s one thing the U.S. got pretty right: the states are essentially competing small governments (and why we should work to minimize the federal government). Voting with your feet always beats voting with your hands!
      • malandrew 7y ago
        This is always my argument when I explain to people why I'm so rabidly against a large federal government responsible for ever more aspects of our lives. With 50 states, you have 50 different experiments and if one of them finds success, the other 49 are free to copy those successes. With the federal government, any failed experiment eventually becomes a fact of life that is impossible to unseat and replace with something better. Federal government is essentially a local maxima that we get stuck in.
      • UncleMeat 7y ago
        Except in a market with competition consumers will have the power to make choices. I don't have the power to easily move to other cities or states. It costs thousands of dollars and takes a ton of time and stress. It separates me from my family. And if I struggled to find a job might not be able to move at all.
  • tr3ndyBEAR 7y ago
    This kinda makes it sound like the ultimate outcome of corporate growth is socialism. At some point, many of these functions fulfilled by corporations are essential, might as well nationalize it and have it function for the public good right? Then maybe you won't have stuff like the despicable state of the printer industry
    • malandrew 7y ago
      > might as well nationalize it and have it function for the public good right? No. If I don't like the "socialism" from one company, I'm free to defect and join another company to get the better "socialism" from some other company. If you nationalize it, I no longer have anywhere near the same degree of freedom to pick the "socialism" that works for me. The only option I have is fleeing to another country and starting anew. Also, with a company, I'm specifically associating with others who are productively contributing to that socialism in a way that is comparable to my contributions. If you nationalize it, the freerider problem becomes far more of an issue. It's not like there aren't people who can get away with freeriding in a company, but it is a lot easier to avoid any kind of accountability to contribute if things are nationalized. All "socialism" should start small and local among those that can hold one another accountable to the greater good and then if their flavor of socialism works and scales, it will. If you have to force it upon people from above, it's almost certainly the wrong solution.
  • vannevar 7y ago
    History is a never ending see-saw, and we are now sawing back towards protectionism, big government, and less freedoms for the individual. The reason we are moving back toward regulation is that we forgot how irresponsible and destructive corporations can be when they are underregulated. The notion that as long as people can express their preference by buying stuff no regulation is necessary is a libertarian fantasy, completely unsupported by the historical record. The reality is that as corporate power and reach increase, corporations cause more and more destruction when left to short-term profit motive as their only control system. Corporations are all publicly chartered, and their continued existence should always be conditional on a broader conception of the public good than can be captured in a balance sheet.
• hinkley 7y ago
  One of the checks and balances that we have worsened since 911 is the division of powers. No group had a monopoly on many aspects of your life and so you could “shop around” if things got bad. And this is why you need antitrust laws. I need an option to use another provider if this one is treating me unfairly for dystopian or other reasons.
  • fdjkl450p9g 7y ago
    Existing Govts around the world have allowed global monopoly's to grow as part of the New World Order, its a wonder how the major political parties continue to be elected, doesn't matter if you look at the US, UK or EU, all are guilty of pandering to the global elites who continue to get richer off our backs.
• TaylorAlexander 7y ago
  Or change the structure of corporations in practice to many more cooperatively owned and democratically operated businesses. In this way, the actions of the corporations will much more reflect the needs of the people instead of reflecting the needs of an elite board of directors. And in that world, the government only needs to do things like provide legal support for new cooperatives, laws that allow/require employees to purchase the company via right of first refusal laws, etc. Obviously moving control from elite company owners to government bureaucrats is not going to be much better for society.
  • jnordwick 7y ago
    And who funds these cooperatives? They'll still get some money, but probably not though to run many of them. I'm certainly not going to be as free investing in cooperatives. Most probably won't be run well and die off. This would probably lead to single large companies as very few could run themselves efficiently.
    • simple_phrases 7y ago
      > Most probably won't be run well and die off. This is already the case with privately owned companies.
    • solidsnack9000 7y ago
      The same people who invest most of the money -- big funds that invest in a diverse portfolio instead of one or another company's specific strategy per se. Investors are always happy when they hit a Whole Foods or an Amazon but you can't invest a whole pension in companies like that.
• rapind 7y ago
  IMO if companies were structured more democratically (co-ops) you wouldn't need as much regulation (long view taken by workers more often than short term profit), and therefore smaller government. Win - win.
  • pbourke 7y ago
    I agree with this. I wonder what prevents there from being more co-ops in diverse industries? Capital requirements? In banking there are credit unions. I wonder what the tech equivalent of credit unions look like.
    • rapind 7y ago
      Lack of support infrastructure. Traditional startups being so common have a large market of services, grants, financing, lawyers geared towards them. More of an uphill battle for a co-op. I think even licensing can be an issue in some areas. Also, there's a significant tax advantage for shareholders (long-term capital gains) vs. income you receive as a worker. https://github.com/hng/tech-coops https://github.com/hng/tech-coops
• nostrademons 7y ago
  The check on corporations is competition. Don't like what they do, take your business elsewhere. The huge problem is that this check isn't really working, because the FTC is asleep at the wheel. We have anti-monopoly laws on the books; they exist to ensure that consumers have adequate degrees of choice and companies have a check on blatantly abusive behavior. It's time to start enforcing them. Break up giant corporations and prevent them from gaining a stranglehold on the market and much of the need for government regulation goes away.
• skybrian 7y ago
  Corporations (or really, their staff) end up policing things because nobody else wants to do the work. You don't see governments volunteering to handle all the flagged posts on Facebook.