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This isn't about economics. This is about power. We used to understand that power is an incredibly dangerous thing. This country was founded on the principle of

This isn't about economics. This is about power. We used to understand that power is an incredibly dangerous thing. This country was founded on the principle of diffusing power: no one person should have unilateral authority over the lives of millions of people. Consequently, our government is set up to pit ambitious people against each other and make them accountable to the public. It's worked for hundreds of years. Why shouldn't we apply the principle of separation of powers to corporations that can harm millions of people? Once a company becomes so large that it becomes an integral part of society (and I think Airbnb now qualifies) it should be subject either to regulation (to diffuse power and make the company accountable to public via the state) or split up (to diffuse power and make the company accountable to the public via the market). Consider it a lifetime achievement prize. The overriding principle here is that no one person should have the amount of power of individual lives that the CEO of an essential monopoly has.

Finnucane 7y ago
>This isn't about economics. This is about power. What part of economics isn't about power?
- quotemstr 7y ago
  > What part of economics isn't about power? Economics is about power in the sense that chemistry is about particle physics. I mean, yeah, sure, that kind of analysis is technically admissible, but it's not useful because there are important emergent phenomena in the higher-level system (economics, chemistry) that become impossibly cumbersome modeled directly in the language of the lower-level system (individual incentives, particle physics). It's not particularly productive to apply the language of political science to things like Ricardo's examination of land rents. My point is that as companies become very large, the high-level phenomenon start to break down and we need to begin using the lower-level machinery to make sense of the problem in the extreme space. For example, the interior of neutron star is best understood by referencing physical effects directly. Likewise, when an economy has consolidated to the point that we basically have one giant company per economic sector, it starts being more useful to look at the situation through the lens of history and politics than through the lens of pure economics.

Finnucane 7y ago

>This isn't about economics. This is about power. What part of economics isn't about power?

quotemstr 7y ago
> What part of economics isn't about power? Economics is about power in the sense that chemistry is about particle physics. I mean, yeah, sure, that kind of analysis is technically admissible, but it's not useful because there are important emergent phenomena in the higher-level system (economics, chemistry) that become impossibly cumbersome modeled directly in the language of the lower-level system (individual incentives, particle physics). It's not particularly productive to apply the language of political science to things like Ricardo's examination of land rents. My point is that as companies become very large, the high-level phenomenon start to break down and we need to begin using the lower-level machinery to make sense of the problem in the extreme space. For example, the interior of neutron star is best understood by referencing physical effects directly. Likewise, when an economy has consolidated to the point that we basically have one giant company per economic sector, it starts being more useful to look at the situation through the lens of history and politics than through the lens of pure economics.