12 ms·

Authoritarianism is bad for business, there are plenty of examples where big businesses get "nationalized" or where the founders are forced to sell to a "friend

by cynusx 6y ago

Authoritarianism is bad for business, there are plenty of examples where big businesses get "nationalized" or where the founders are forced to sell to a "friendly party official" who then proceeds to run it into the ground. Russia notoriously is very good at this, leading even innovative companies to sabotage their own growth as to not become an "acquisition target" of the ruling elite. There is also the "creative destruction problem" where an innovative company is beating an incumbent, but the incumbent happens to be partially owned by party cadre and leverages its power to shut down the innovator. In my humble opinion, the security and protection of property under the rule of law should be a human right as it's the core driver of economic growth.

pm90 6y ago
> Authoritarianism is bad for business, there are plenty of examples where big businesses get "nationalized" or where the founders are forced to sell to a "friendly party official" who then proceeds to run it into the ground. I think this may be true but I would like to see a better argument for it. It is not hard to find businesses that have been successful specifically due to authoritarian State patronage (e.g. Huawei in China, Chaebols in South Korea).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- guitarbill 6y ago
  Is the "authoritarian" part required? Two examples being Boeing or Airbus.
- cynusx 6y ago
  First of all, you are asking me to provide a better argument for another case altogether. Authoritarianism is bad because it enables party cadre to outright steal businesses (expropriation) and protect incumbents. The case you want me to argue authoritarianism is bad for business is where the state is buying goods or services and picks a winner by providing state patronage. The short answer here is that when the state picks winners, they are screwing themselves because the incentive to innovate disappears in companies that managed to attain "regulatory capture". There is also a significant incentive for big companies to merge or bid on government contracts as a joint-venture (e.g. Airbus, United Launch Alliance) because they can form a price cartel. That the state does not break up these cartels and goes along with it is because politicians are generally not too savvy and most likely a good amount of corruption is involved. Anti-trust laws are used to protect consumers and businesses, but ironically I haven't seen them used to protect the government as a customer.
White_Wolf 6y ago
Wouldn't the same apply to the attempt to force the sale of TikTok in US then?
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  To some degree, yes. One difference is that the proposed buyers are not owned by those in power, so that direct financial benefit is not the motive for forcing the sale.
  - bronson 6y ago
    The buyers (Ellison etc) were the the friends and supporters of those in power.
  - 8note 6y ago
    What do you mean by in power? If somebody has the wealth to buy this company, they already have considerable power
- gpm 6y ago
  That's almost the main point, to be bad for business. Specifically business coming from a foreign dictatorship that is hostile to our businesses, threatens national security, etc.
- mattnewton 6y ago
  Yes, the US has been trending towards authoritarianism in my lifetime and that’s one example consequence.
- grey-area 6y ago
  Yes.
arcticbull 6y ago
> Authoritarianism is bad for business. Not all authoritarianism, for instance Singapore is great for business. Totalitarianism maybe?
- Fricken 6y ago
  Stability is good for business.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    > Stability is good for business. For existing business, not new one
    - xxpor 6y ago
      Disagree in the general case. Instability costs money, and incumbent players with better access to capital can survive more easially. On the other hand, stability in regulations make it easier for a start up to derisk themselves as there will be a well built up series of case law around the relevant regulations. Now, if you mean technology instability, completely agreed. That's where innovation comes from. I think Uber's a perfect example. Taxi regulations either have been stable or essentially unenforced for decades in most places. This gave them the opening. However, everyone getting a smartphone in 2010-2011 is what really blew the doors open.
      - kelnos 6y ago
        At the risk of moving the goalposts, if what you're saying is true, then I disagree with the premise that "stability is good for business" is a good thing. This kind of "stability" leads to stagnation and ossification, which I consider to be negatives in any society.
    - refurb 6y ago
      You’re thinking of a different kind of stability. I think OP was referring to thinks like a stable financial system, legal and law enforcement and economic policy. Those are generally good for new businesses too. Who wants to start a new business when someone comes by and changes all the rules suddenly?
mywittyname 6y ago
> There is also the "creative destruction problem" where an innovative company is beating an incumbent, but the incumbent happens to be partially owned by party cadre and leverages its power to shut down the innovator. A country doesn't need authoritarianism to accomplish this. Many democratic countries have a long history of very similar behavior. Even a company with the resources of Google found it difficult to establish their own ISP in the USA. So did local governments within the USA. Famously, Google said it could not have been founded in Britain due to their onerous copyright laws. The incumbent merely needs enough money to shut down the competition; with money comes influence and capability. Different countries require different strategies, all of which need money. If you're in China, you join the party to crush opposition; if you're in the USA, you bribe Congressman to regulate them out of business (or just sue them); if you're in Mexico, you send your armed thugs to kill the leaders.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  Authoritarianism lowers the bar for the effort that it takes this kind of thing to happen though. It takes a lot more money and effort to do it in a system where power is less concentrated than one where it is centralized since there are more actors you have to coordinate with.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - georgeplusplus 6y ago
    This simple fact is constantly overlooked by people who wish To expand government to stamp out corruption when the corruption lies in the centralization of power.
    - not_kurt_godel 6y ago
      And it's likewise often overlooked by those who oppose regulation who fail to recognize when power is centralized by corporations which are even less accountable than a democratic government.
heavyset_go 6y ago
The word 'privatization' was coined to describe Nazi Germany's economic policy[1], and Germany went from a country with serious inflation, to seeing high returns on investment[2]. Violent states often makes friends with business owners. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization#Etymology [2] https://nickledanddimed.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/nazi.png https://nickledanddimed.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/nazi.png
- RobertoG 6y ago
  >>"Germany went from a country with serious inflation, to seeing high returns on investment[2]." The problem before the Nazis arrived to power was deflation (1) not inflation. (1) - https://ghdi.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=3838 https://ghdi.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=3838
pjc50 6y ago
> the security and protection of property under the rule of law should be a human right Well, it is - although the extent to which this should extend from humans to corporations is debatable. Otherwise you end up with situations like Philip Morris suing Australia over their anti-smoking policy.
- xxpor 6y ago
  I don't see why that's a rediculous situation. If the government of Australia is violating the law or constitution, who else would sue them? Obviously not a fan of PM but if there's rules there's gotta be a way to enforce them, from both sides.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - sjy 6y ago
    Most Australians found the argument that plain packaging laws amounted to an unconstitutional acquisition of tobacco companies’ intellectual property ridiculous. Ultimately, the courts agreed, but the argument does follow from the premises often accepted by people who emphasise the primacy of property rights: that the government can’t take them without compensation, and that they include rights to commercially exploit trademarks and copyrights.
    - refurb 6y ago
      Are you saying people shouldn’t be able to bring forth court cases that the population thinks are ridiculous?
      - sjy 6y ago
        No, I’m agreeing with pjc50 that claims like “the security and protection of property under the rule of law should be a human right” deserve skepticism, if they mean that Western democracies should provide more legal protection for property rights than they already do, because that’s what the tobacco companies wanted and it would have been bad if they got it.
roenxi 6y ago
> the security and protection of property under the rule of law should be a human right as it's the core driver of economic growth. Great idea, but it is untenable because it would rule out taxes. And if it didn't, then the authoritarians would claim they were levying a tax.
sfifs 6y ago
Talking to friends in China, there's actually a fair amount of understanding and support for the government. They value stability and the massive leverage ratio Ant was working with scares a lot of people about financial instability - the 2008 great depression is still quite vivid for a lot of decision makers
- dice1-6 6y ago
  The question however is the decision was based on lending fears? (as it is not connected much to the IPO only the valuation) Or it was an ad-hoc personal decision of Xi because Ma started to overgrow him.
- jariel 6y ago
  "They value stability" The CCP values absolute, total, ubiquitous and unquestioned control. Challenging their authority with the mere comparison of Xi to 'Winnie the Pooh' will incite censure.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- ekianjo 6y ago
  > there's actually a fair amount of understanding and support for the government You have to thank disinformation and mass brainwashing for that. The fact that there is virtually no opposition in China says how far they have gone to control people.
  - vkou 6y ago
    If your response to people holding differing opinions is that 'They are obviously stupid and misinformed and brainwashed', I don't think that any productive discussion can be had. I can, after all, say the same thing about anyone who disagrees with me. Attack their argument on its own merits.
    - ekianjo 6y ago
agapon 6y ago
> Authoritarianism is bad for business But it's also good for business when the business's owner belongs to a ruling clique or is very close to it or, at least, always cooperates with it.
- cynusx 6y ago
  Sure, a monopoly is a great business... everybody wants to be the owner of that. The problem is... what if you are not? Even worse, what if this monopoly business is a crucial supplier for other businesses? Now these government guys can extract all the profits from their clients because there is no other choice.
CoolGuySteve 6y ago
This doesn't sound all too dissimilar to what happened to Tik Tok. 2020-06-21: A Trump rally in Tulsa is reportedly trolled by people on Tik Tok. 2020-08-06: Executive order issued banning Tik Tok in November unless it can be sold to American stakeholders. 2020-09-14: Oracle is reportedly in the lead to acquire Tik Tok. 2020-11-12: Department of Commerce puts stay on the executive order. There's a lot of talk about national security issues and whatnot, but the timing between Trump losing face and Tik Tok almost being acquired by American interests is just too convenient to ignore. The stability of contract law is essential to a well functioning market and the actions of this administration are just plain gross.
- cynusx 6y ago
  TikTok is a foreign company and the president has unrestricted power in foreign affairs. I am happy to agree with you that the president should have also restricted power abroad in let's say something like an overarching trade agreement that puts checks and balances on individual states.
dash2 6y ago
The problem with this claim is that it is not that easy to see it in the evidence. While nearly all the richest countries are democracies and nearly all the poorest countries are dictatorships, the causality could go the other way - or something else could have made countries both rich and democratic. If you look at growth rates you don't see big differences. You have to work quite hard to find differences (though some people think they can: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/700936 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/700936).
swayvil 6y ago
The whole point of business is to accumulate power. Accumulate enough power and you are an "authority" Therefore a system that facilitates business ("capitalism" or whatever) is implicitly authoritarian. Right?
- cynusx 6y ago
  The point of a business is to pool resources and make profit (add more value then taken away) and return money to the shareholders (make wealth) Power can be a side-effect because you make A LOT of money and people are generally happy to do things for money, but generally businesses are not political and are dependent on their political environment. Specifically the "return money to the shareholders" part can be affected by weak rule of law and weak property laws
  - swayvil 6y ago
    You are merely equivocating about the bush.
FpUser 6y ago
>"In my humble opinion, the security and protection of property under the rule of law should be a human right as it's the core driver of economic growth." Economic growth and well being of the majority are not necessarily the same thing.
haecceity 6y ago
Russia was only good at this after they liberalized their economy.
8note 6y ago
I don't think you're describing authorianism so much as centralized power. Private property does the same thing, it just chooses who has power using a different metric. Somebody with a lot of property can do the same stuff, except where laws prevent them, but it's the laws doing the protecting, not your own property What you really need to avoid these issues is ways to distribute power. Anti trust, democracy, checks and balances, etc where lots of people to agree
- Aeolun 6y ago
  It’s fairly hard to force someone that doesn’t want to to sell in any democracy.
  - ivalm 6y ago
    No, but you can make that their suppliers break contract, their clients move away, etc. One can force a sale simply by making business untenable. Monopolistic and anti-competitive behaviors can happen without breaching private property laws, this is why government has to also fight anti-competitive behaviors.
    - chii 6y ago
      The cost of doing this in a democracy is more difficult. The cost of extortion is lower in an authoritarian regime because there are fewer people to bribe.
      - konjin 6y ago
        Yet somehow the richest man on China hasn't managed to do that. The systems are not equivalent. Trying to say one is better is short sighted and self defeating. The US if it does not deal with monopolies is headed to a worst of all possible worlds.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
justinclift 6y ago
Interestingly, that also sounds a lot like what Trump was attempting recently (pre-election) with forcing the sale of TikTok to Oracle.
ashtonkem 6y ago
> Authoritarianism is bad for business This is true, but there are also plenty of cases where big businesses have propped up authoritarian regimes because they fear someone else more. The best historical example for this is Hitler; his rise was heavily supported by big and small businesses that feared left wing groups would cut into their profits[0]. This is part of why Hitler was able to rise despite never commanding an overwhelming majority. 0 - To be somewhat fair to the big businesses, there were actual communists running around Germany trying to get a revolution going there too, and that would be very bad for business too.
- cynusx 6y ago
  Communism is an extreme version of authoritarianism, officially executed in the "name of the people" but in reality executed by a revolutionary command of max 10 people. In interwar Germany, there were also old imperialists who didn't value democracy too high that were more than willing to ally with Hitler. It wasn't just businesses, it was also the church who rightly feared prosecution from the communists. There were very few pro-democracy parties in interwar Germany and NSDAP was the only one with a huge militia that would be able to defend against a communist revolution. The army was too small because of the treaty of versailles. You could argue that businesses picked the least-worst option among a plate of very bad options.
lawnchair_larry 6y ago
> there are plenty of examples where big businesses get "nationalized" or where the founders are forced to sell to a "friendly party official" who then proceeds to run it into the ground. Russia notoriously is very good at this, leading even innovative companies to sabotage their own growth as to not become an "acquisition target" of the ruling elite. Equinor (Statoil) and Gazprom seem to have produced results that can only be described as precisely the opposite of being run into the ground.
Razengan 6y ago
> Russia notoriously is very good at this, leading even innovative companies to sabotage their own growth as to not become an "acquisition target" of the ruling elite. Lately the US doesn’t seem like a good place for businesses to become “too successful” in either. See the banning of TikTok and all the ruckus about forcing Apple to open the App Store or breaking Google up etc.
curation 6y ago
China is the most successful capitalist country in history and they are authoritarian?
- cynusx 6y ago
  Russia also had massive growth numbers when they were catching up to the west, however at some point the authoritarianism starts to sabotage it. China has a huge population and is destined to have a huge economy, however they are still playing catch up with the west. GDP/capita US: 65k usd GDP/capita Russia: 11.2k usd GDP/capita China: 9.7k usd It remains to be seen to what extent China will be able to restrain it's party cadre from sabotaging growth in the next decade

by cynusx 6y ago

pm90 6y ago

> Authoritarianism is bad for business, there are plenty of examples where big businesses get "nationalized" or where the founders are forced to sell to a "friendly party official" who then proceeds to run it into the ground. I think this may be true but I would like to see a better argument for it. It is not hard to find businesses that have been successful specifically due to authoritarian State patronage (e.g. Huawei in China, Chaebols in South Korea).

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
guitarbill 6y ago
Is the "authoritarian" part required? Two examples being Boeing or Airbus.
cynusx 6y ago
First of all, you are asking me to provide a better argument for another case altogether. Authoritarianism is bad because it enables party cadre to outright steal businesses (expropriation) and protect incumbents. The case you want me to argue authoritarianism is bad for business is where the state is buying goods or services and picks a winner by providing state patronage. The short answer here is that when the state picks winners, they are screwing themselves because the incentive to innovate disappears in companies that managed to attain "regulatory capture". There is also a significant incentive for big companies to merge or bid on government contracts as a joint-venture (e.g. Airbus, United Launch Alliance) because they can form a price cartel. That the state does not break up these cartels and goes along with it is because politicians are generally not too savvy and most likely a good amount of corruption is involved. Anti-trust laws are used to protect consumers and businesses, but ironically I haven't seen them used to protect the government as a customer.

White_Wolf 6y ago

Wouldn't the same apply to the attempt to force the sale of TikTok in US then?

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
To some degree, yes. One difference is that the proposed buyers are not owned by those in power, so that direct financial benefit is not the motive for forcing the sale.
- bronson 6y ago
  The buyers (Ellison etc) were the the friends and supporters of those in power.
- 8note 6y ago
  What do you mean by in power? If somebody has the wealth to buy this company, they already have considerable power
gpm 6y ago
That's almost the main point, to be bad for business. Specifically business coming from a foreign dictatorship that is hostile to our businesses, threatens national security, etc.
mattnewton 6y ago
Yes, the US has been trending towards authoritarianism in my lifetime and that’s one example consequence.
grey-area 6y ago
Yes.

arcticbull 6y ago

> Authoritarianism is bad for business. Not all authoritarianism, for instance Singapore is great for business. Totalitarianism maybe?

Fricken 6y ago
Stability is good for business.
- baybal2 6y ago
  > Stability is good for business. For existing business, not new one
  - xxpor 6y ago
    Disagree in the general case. Instability costs money, and incumbent players with better access to capital can survive more easially. On the other hand, stability in regulations make it easier for a start up to derisk themselves as there will be a well built up series of case law around the relevant regulations. Now, if you mean technology instability, completely agreed. That's where innovation comes from. I think Uber's a perfect example. Taxi regulations either have been stable or essentially unenforced for decades in most places. This gave them the opening. However, everyone getting a smartphone in 2010-2011 is what really blew the doors open.
    - kelnos 6y ago
      At the risk of moving the goalposts, if what you're saying is true, then I disagree with the premise that "stability is good for business" is a good thing. This kind of "stability" leads to stagnation and ossification, which I consider to be negatives in any society.
  - refurb 6y ago
    You’re thinking of a different kind of stability. I think OP was referring to thinks like a stable financial system, legal and law enforcement and economic policy. Those are generally good for new businesses too. Who wants to start a new business when someone comes by and changes all the rules suddenly?

mywittyname 6y ago

> There is also the "creative destruction problem" where an innovative company is beating an incumbent, but the incumbent happens to be partially owned by party cadre and leverages its power to shut down the innovator. A country doesn't need authoritarianism to accomplish this. Many democratic countries have a long history of very similar behavior. Even a company with the resources of Google found it difficult to establish their own ISP in the USA. So did local governments within the USA. Famously, Google said it could not have been founded in Britain due to their onerous copyright laws. The incumbent merely needs enough money to shut down the competition; with money comes influence and capability. Different countries require different strategies, all of which need money. If you're in China, you join the party to crush opposition; if you're in the USA, you bribe Congressman to regulate them out of business (or just sue them); if you're in Mexico, you send your armed thugs to kill the leaders.

bobthepanda 6y ago
Authoritarianism lowers the bar for the effort that it takes this kind of thing to happen though. It takes a lot more money and effort to do it in a system where power is less concentrated than one where it is centralized since there are more actors you have to coordinate with.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- georgeplusplus 6y ago
  This simple fact is constantly overlooked by people who wish To expand government to stamp out corruption when the corruption lies in the centralization of power.
  - not_kurt_godel 6y ago
    And it's likewise often overlooked by those who oppose regulation who fail to recognize when power is centralized by corporations which are even less accountable than a democratic government.

heavyset_go 6y ago

The word 'privatization' was coined to describe Nazi Germany's economic policy[1], and Germany went from a country with serious inflation, to seeing high returns on investment[2]. Violent states often makes friends with business owners. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization#Etymology [2] https://nickledanddimed.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/nazi.png https://nickledanddimed.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/nazi.png

RobertoG 6y ago
>>"Germany went from a country with serious inflation, to seeing high returns on investment[2]." The problem before the Nazis arrived to power was deflation (1) not inflation. (1) - https://ghdi.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=3838 https://ghdi.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=3838

pjc50 6y ago

> the security and protection of property under the rule of law should be a human right Well, it is - although the extent to which this should extend from humans to corporations is debatable. Otherwise you end up with situations like Philip Morris suing Australia over their anti-smoking policy.

xxpor 6y ago
I don't see why that's a rediculous situation. If the government of Australia is violating the law or constitution, who else would sue them? Obviously not a fan of PM but if there's rules there's gotta be a way to enforce them, from both sides.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- sjy 6y ago
  Most Australians found the argument that plain packaging laws amounted to an unconstitutional acquisition of tobacco companies’ intellectual property ridiculous. Ultimately, the courts agreed, but the argument does follow from the premises often accepted by people who emphasise the primacy of property rights: that the government can’t take them without compensation, and that they include rights to commercially exploit trademarks and copyrights.
  - refurb 6y ago
    Are you saying people shouldn’t be able to bring forth court cases that the population thinks are ridiculous?
    - sjy 6y ago
      No, I’m agreeing with pjc50 that claims like “the security and protection of property under the rule of law should be a human right” deserve skepticism, if they mean that Western democracies should provide more legal protection for property rights than they already do, because that’s what the tobacco companies wanted and it would have been bad if they got it.

roenxi 6y ago

> the security and protection of property under the rule of law should be a human right as it's the core driver of economic growth. Great idea, but it is untenable because it would rule out taxes. And if it didn't, then the authoritarians would claim they were levying a tax.

sfifs 6y ago

Talking to friends in China, there's actually a fair amount of understanding and support for the government. They value stability and the massive leverage ratio Ant was working with scares a lot of people about financial instability - the 2008 great depression is still quite vivid for a lot of decision makers

dice1-6 6y ago
The question however is the decision was based on lending fears? (as it is not connected much to the IPO only the valuation) Or it was an ad-hoc personal decision of Xi because Ma started to overgrow him.
jariel 6y ago
"They value stability" The CCP values absolute, total, ubiquitous and unquestioned control. Challenging their authority with the mere comparison of Xi to 'Winnie the Pooh' will incite censure.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ekianjo 6y ago
> there's actually a fair amount of understanding and support for the government You have to thank disinformation and mass brainwashing for that. The fact that there is virtually no opposition in China says how far they have gone to control people.
- vkou 6y ago
  If your response to people holding differing opinions is that 'They are obviously stupid and misinformed and brainwashed', I don't think that any productive discussion can be had. I can, after all, say the same thing about anyone who disagrees with me. Attack their argument on its own merits.
  - ekianjo 6y ago

agapon 6y ago

> Authoritarianism is bad for business But it's also good for business when the business's owner belongs to a ruling clique or is very close to it or, at least, always cooperates with it.

cynusx 6y ago
Sure, a monopoly is a great business... everybody wants to be the owner of that. The problem is... what if you are not? Even worse, what if this monopoly business is a crucial supplier for other businesses? Now these government guys can extract all the profits from their clients because there is no other choice.

CoolGuySteve 6y ago

This doesn't sound all too dissimilar to what happened to Tik Tok. 2020-06-21: A Trump rally in Tulsa is reportedly trolled by people on Tik Tok. 2020-08-06: Executive order issued banning Tik Tok in November unless it can be sold to American stakeholders. 2020-09-14: Oracle is reportedly in the lead to acquire Tik Tok. 2020-11-12: Department of Commerce puts stay on the executive order. There's a lot of talk about national security issues and whatnot, but the timing between Trump losing face and Tik Tok almost being acquired by American interests is just too convenient to ignore. The stability of contract law is essential to a well functioning market and the actions of this administration are just plain gross.

cynusx 6y ago
TikTok is a foreign company and the president has unrestricted power in foreign affairs. I am happy to agree with you that the president should have also restricted power abroad in let's say something like an overarching trade agreement that puts checks and balances on individual states.

dash2 6y ago

The problem with this claim is that it is not that easy to see it in the evidence. While nearly all the richest countries are democracies and nearly all the poorest countries are dictatorships, the causality could go the other way - or something else could have made countries both rich and democratic. If you look at growth rates you don't see big differences. You have to work quite hard to find differences (though some people think they can: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/700936 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/700936).

swayvil 6y ago

The whole point of business is to accumulate power. Accumulate enough power and you are an "authority" Therefore a system that facilitates business ("capitalism" or whatever) is implicitly authoritarian. Right?

cynusx 6y ago
The point of a business is to pool resources and make profit (add more value then taken away) and return money to the shareholders (make wealth) Power can be a side-effect because you make A LOT of money and people are generally happy to do things for money, but generally businesses are not political and are dependent on their political environment. Specifically the "return money to the shareholders" part can be affected by weak rule of law and weak property laws
- swayvil 6y ago
  You are merely equivocating about the bush.

FpUser 6y ago

>"In my humble opinion, the security and protection of property under the rule of law should be a human right as it's the core driver of economic growth." Economic growth and well being of the majority are not necessarily the same thing.

haecceity 6y ago

Russia was only good at this after they liberalized their economy.

8note 6y ago

I don't think you're describing authorianism so much as centralized power. Private property does the same thing, it just chooses who has power using a different metric. Somebody with a lot of property can do the same stuff, except where laws prevent them, but it's the laws doing the protecting, not your own property What you really need to avoid these issues is ways to distribute power. Anti trust, democracy, checks and balances, etc where lots of people to agree

Aeolun 6y ago
It’s fairly hard to force someone that doesn’t want to to sell in any democracy.
- ivalm 6y ago
  No, but you can make that their suppliers break contract, their clients move away, etc. One can force a sale simply by making business untenable. Monopolistic and anti-competitive behaviors can happen without breaching private property laws, this is why government has to also fight anti-competitive behaviors.
  - chii 6y ago
    The cost of doing this in a democracy is more difficult. The cost of extortion is lower in an authoritarian regime because there are fewer people to bribe.
    - konjin 6y ago
      Yet somehow the richest man on China hasn't managed to do that. The systems are not equivalent. Trying to say one is better is short sighted and self defeating. The US if it does not deal with monopolies is headed to a worst of all possible worlds.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]

justinclift 6y ago

Interestingly, that also sounds a lot like what Trump was attempting recently (pre-election) with forcing the sale of TikTok to Oracle.

ashtonkem 6y ago

> Authoritarianism is bad for business This is true, but there are also plenty of cases where big businesses have propped up authoritarian regimes because they fear someone else more. The best historical example for this is Hitler; his rise was heavily supported by big and small businesses that feared left wing groups would cut into their profits[0]. This is part of why Hitler was able to rise despite never commanding an overwhelming majority. 0 - To be somewhat fair to the big businesses, there were actual communists running around Germany trying to get a revolution going there too, and that would be very bad for business too.

cynusx 6y ago
Communism is an extreme version of authoritarianism, officially executed in the "name of the people" but in reality executed by a revolutionary command of max 10 people. In interwar Germany, there were also old imperialists who didn't value democracy too high that were more than willing to ally with Hitler. It wasn't just businesses, it was also the church who rightly feared prosecution from the communists. There were very few pro-democracy parties in interwar Germany and NSDAP was the only one with a huge militia that would be able to defend against a communist revolution. The army was too small because of the treaty of versailles. You could argue that businesses picked the least-worst option among a plate of very bad options.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago

> there are plenty of examples where big businesses get "nationalized" or where the founders are forced to sell to a "friendly party official" who then proceeds to run it into the ground. Russia notoriously is very good at this, leading even innovative companies to sabotage their own growth as to not become an "acquisition target" of the ruling elite. Equinor (Statoil) and Gazprom seem to have produced results that can only be described as precisely the opposite of being run into the ground.

Razengan 6y ago

> Russia notoriously is very good at this, leading even innovative companies to sabotage their own growth as to not become an "acquisition target" of the ruling elite. Lately the US doesn’t seem like a good place for businesses to become “too successful” in either. See the banning of TikTok and all the ruckus about forcing Apple to open the App Store or breaking Google up etc.

curation 6y ago

China is the most successful capitalist country in history and they are authoritarian?

cynusx 6y ago
Russia also had massive growth numbers when they were catching up to the west, however at some point the authoritarianism starts to sabotage it. China has a huge population and is destined to have a huge economy, however they are still playing catch up with the west. GDP/capita US: 65k usd GDP/capita Russia: 11.2k usd GDP/capita China: 9.7k usd It remains to be seen to what extent China will be able to restrain it's party cadre from sabotaging growth in the next decade