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This is one of the best arguments I can think of against having large corporations with "corporate person hood". It does enable large capital accumulation over

This is one of the best arguments I can think of against having large corporations with "corporate person hood". It does enable large capital accumulation over time, but that capital accumulation eventually becomes so de-personalized in how it gets used that it becomes detrimental to society. A single private owner tends to care and have more purpose, more personal stake in real long-term growth, and can take the real risk of investment. Corporations, as we see more and more, get huge amounts of capital and then start gaming the system for short term executive bonuses.

Retric 6y ago
Economies of scale are extremely valuable to the overall economy as mega corps tend to charge lower prices. Similarly, SpaceX as a high risk high cost investment is vastly more likely with group funding than a single private owner. Clearly there are some downsides, but managing them via laws and regulations is possible.
- ryanbrunner 6y ago
  There's a cost associated with this as well though. Those lower costs don't come for free - they come from increased efficiency which translates to fewer workers and less money being redirected into local economies.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Is more workers to achieve the same total outcome a desirable state? It seems like what you’re proposing doing there is literally wasting entire human work lives for zero productive output.
    - ryanbrunner 6y ago
      If you took this to an unrealistic extreme, where 100% of all jobs are automated, every cent of profit flows into the hands of owners and shareholders, and there's literally no job that labour can take, that's clearly and obviously worse. The flipside, where efficiency is at it's lowest, and every single product ever is hand-crafted with a tremendous amount of labour seems obviously bad too. Of course, those are both ridiculous extremes - the answer to what balance is healthiest for an economy I'm sure is immensely complicated. I'm just saying that efficiency doesn't come without costs, and we shouldn't design our entire economy completely around the interests of shareholders of major corporations.
      - Retric 6y ago
        It seems like your automated example allows a welfare state to provide a better quality of life than we currently enjoy. Having people do pointless jobs for the same income at that point seems inherently worse. That said, I have serious doubts that everything can be automated as that suggests all human labor would be providing zero value.

Retric 6y ago

Economies of scale are extremely valuable to the overall economy as mega corps tend to charge lower prices. Similarly, SpaceX as a high risk high cost investment is vastly more likely with group funding than a single private owner. Clearly there are some downsides, but managing them via laws and regulations is possible.

ryanbrunner 6y ago
There's a cost associated with this as well though. Those lower costs don't come for free - they come from increased efficiency which translates to fewer workers and less money being redirected into local economies.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Is more workers to achieve the same total outcome a desirable state? It seems like what you’re proposing doing there is literally wasting entire human work lives for zero productive output.
  - ryanbrunner 6y ago
    If you took this to an unrealistic extreme, where 100% of all jobs are automated, every cent of profit flows into the hands of owners and shareholders, and there's literally no job that labour can take, that's clearly and obviously worse. The flipside, where efficiency is at it's lowest, and every single product ever is hand-crafted with a tremendous amount of labour seems obviously bad too. Of course, those are both ridiculous extremes - the answer to what balance is healthiest for an economy I'm sure is immensely complicated. I'm just saying that efficiency doesn't come without costs, and we shouldn't design our entire economy completely around the interests of shareholders of major corporations.
    - Retric 6y ago
      It seems like your automated example allows a welfare state to provide a better quality of life than we currently enjoy. Having people do pointless jobs for the same income at that point seems inherently worse. That said, I have serious doubts that everything can be automated as that suggests all human labor would be providing zero value.