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For comparison, using national total wealth, that makes Amazon worth more than Saudia Arabia, Denmark, Portugal, or New Zealand. It's $280.5 billion in revenue
by munificent 6y ago
For comparison, using national total wealth, that makes Amazon worth more than Saudia Arabia, Denmark, Portugal, or New Zealand.
It's $280.5 billion in revenue in 2019 put it above the GDP of Romania, Peru, Ukraine, etc.
Corporations should never be allowed to get this large.
- personjerry 6y ago> Corporations should never be allowed to get this large. Why? Bonus question: Why should governments be allowed to get that big?
- wellthisisgreat 6y agoYeah GP is unlikely to answer
- jcranmer 6y agoThe retort to your bonus question is that the government doesn't get to "spend" its GDP. Although the counter-retort is to bring up government revenue instead, where Amazon instead slots in between Mexico and the Netherlands.
- unethical_ban 6y agoLet's start with the premise that "representative government is the union of the people" and "profit motive is not always the best incentive for action in society", and go from there.
- da_big_ghey 6y agoI dispute that premise. I'd hardly call America "unified" at the present moment; we are in such a state of disunity that many are refusing to accept election results. Pervasive as Amazon, Google, et al. may be, they are still much easier to escape than the United States government.
- Judgmentality 6y agoThere's something to be said for Facebook being the cause of America's division right now (amongst many other things obviously).
- ryall 6y agoI'd hardly call America a country with a governmental system that's representative of the people
- sbarre 6y agoI would argue that America is a terrible example of government and governing, and that you shouldn't be using it as a comparison in your argument. Good government is hard, but it's certainly better than a corporation that is legally obligated to put profit ahead of anything else.
- adventured 6y agoCorporations are not legally obligated to put profit ahead of everything else. That's a bad myth that refuses to die. There is absolutely no substance to that claim. There is no legal obligation to maximize shareholder value.
- wizzwizz4 6y agoI don't know of anyone claiming it's a legal obligation. It's a natural obligation, and it's worse. The shareholders want profit maximised, and with that end, decide upon the board of directors, who decide upon the CEO. If the CEO does not maximise profits, the CEO will not remain the CEO. Therefore, the CEOs of (publicly-traded) companies are obliged to maximise profits – those who do not feel such an obligation are not CEOs.
- sokoloff 6y agoLiterally two posts above yours, the one your parent is replying to, are the words “legally obligated to put profit ahead of anything else.”
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- lnanek2 6y agoWhat about starting with the premise that "a successful corporation offers goods or services people want for less cost than competitors" whereas a successful government organization "exhausts their budget every fiscal quarter and successfully demands more". Which is doing more good for the people? I've worked for both and know which I'd choose.
- viraptor 6y agoBecause someone will soon realise that "a successful corporation offers goods or services people want for less cost than competitors" is a great reason to introduce slave labour to increase efficiency. Gig economy without employment rights and stopping unions is just a step towards that. Also "exhausts their budget every fiscal quarter and successfully demands more" applies just as much to corporate projects. And given we gov agencies rarely can solve the whole problem, why expect them not to exhaust their budget?
- fuzzfactor 6y agoA successful corporation performs its mission smartly and reliably. This may or may not include specified behaviors, tasks, growth, marketing, sales, profits, goods, services, employees, competitors, etc. Even corporations without any shareholders are common, found in the non-profit sector, but you do need corporate officers regardless. Would it be better if there were a couple non-profit corporations with one or two million employees each the size of Amazon or Wal-Mart, to go along with what we have now?
- splistud 6y agoI don't see any reason to accept either of those premises. Empirical evidence says you're 0 for 2.
- unethical_ban 6y agoIf you think profit motive, rather than ethics and benefit to society, should control prisons, the provisioning of healthcare, or the education of citizens, there is no middle for us to meet on.
- astrange 6y agoThe right-wing (libertarian?) belief here is usually that doing things for the benefit of society doesn't actually benefit society, because irony always wins. I don't know if this is true, but you'll only talk past each other if you don't acknowledge it.
- danbolt 6y agoNeither have to be that big. If something's going to be so big and pervasive into people's lives though, then I'd rather be able to have a democratic say in a government than the Shinra Electric Power Company.
- arcticbull 6y agoWhat do you mean by "get this big"? Governments aren't defined by a market cap, but rather by the services they provide to their citizens. Consider that a private company's only goal is to enrich its shareholders, and they have no responsibility to the people or places around them. They are only accountable to their shareholders and the government. A governments responsibility is solely to its citizens who also control it by vote. The bigger your biggest companies are, the more powerful your government must become to keep them in line - to ensure they don't break the rules. If you want a small government that is able to retain order and fairness, you must also limit the size of the companies within its purview.
- basilgohar 6y agoThat's a pretty narrow definition of a government. I hardly think that's been the case for most of history and I don't think that's actually the case in the majority of nations to date, even at the surface.
- arcticbull 6y agoCurious what definition you would use? Beyond the obvious, monopoly on the use of force.
- da_big_ghey 6y agoConsider that politicians' only goal is to get re-elected. While the rare exception may exist, that's also true of companies. While governments are accountable in theory, that rarely holds true in practice. I don't think that a "bigger" government, id est one with more regulatory oversight, would help; rather, use the existing court system to enforce what we have. If we lack political will to enforce the existing measures, adding more will not help. A government need not be "big" to have effective court systems and pass some rules on what certain companies can and cannot do.
- arcticbull 6y agoMonopoly rules only exist and matter because of the government. It's pretty obvious that even with them, there's a real pressure for consolidation (and that's efficiency of scale). The natural state of a company is a monopoly. Once you are a monopoly, you don't need to worry about getting "re-elected" any more than a despot does. The free society exists only in the space between these two clashing titans.
- notJim 6y agoThat's not what national total wealth refers to. It refers to the wealth of all citizens. > National net wealth, also known as national net worth, is the total sum of the value of a nation's assets minus its liabilities. It refers to the total value of net wealth possessed by the citizens of a nation at a set point in time. Given that multi-national corporations exist, it seems obvious that companies will have greater wealth than nations.
- TheCoelacanth 6y ago> Given that multi-national corporations exist, it seems obvious that companies will have greater wealth than nations. That doesn't follow because every non-totalitarian country has multiple corporations operating in it, in most countries a much larger number than the maximum number of countries a corporation could possibly operate in.
- mullingitover 6y ago> Bonus question: Why should governments be allowed to get that big? I would argue that most of our current problems are happening because our governments are small, ineffective, and corrupt. I would prefer big, effective, smart, and transparent governments that can take decisive action any day of the week. I'd go so far as to abolish state governments entirely and split their powers between counties and the federal government; they were made for a time when our communications were limited by the speeds of our fastest horses.
- dantheman 6y agosmall and corrupt, so let's make them bigger and corrupt? How much do you think the government should forcefully take from its citizens to get bigger?
- mullingitover 6y agoI mean, that's not what I said at all, and then I see you're breaking out the old 'taxation is theft' sawhorse. Personally I'm a 'taxation makes civilization possible' man myself, and I find that the 'taxation is theft' people rarely make meaningful contributions to society.
- splistud 6y agoThey were made for a time when we were not so poorly educated that we trusted leadership to people so far away, with so little in common with ourselves and our way of lives. I tell you what, though. You design an effective, smart and transparent government and I'll never say a word about how big you would like it to be.
- mullingitover 6y ago> They were made for a time when we were not so poorly educated that we trusted leadership to people so far away, How do we define 'far away'? I can have a face to face conversation with someone at the opposite end of the country with near-zero effort. > with so little in common with ourselves and our way of lives. I strongly disagree with this. Partisan politics try to paint people from different regions of the US as being wildly different, and I flatly reject this notion. I've lived in urban, rural, and in areas separated by thousands of miles. Americans are far more alike than different. There are the same (minor) cultural differences within the average state as between states on opposite ends of the country. > I tell you what, though. You design an effective, smart and transparent government and I'll never say a word about how big you would like it to be. I don't have all the answers, but I would start by outlawing the bribery of public officials via campaign donations, and I'd put the legislative process in version control.
- Dirlewanger 6y agoGovernments exist as a collective to the public to do what one individual cannot do on their own. Corporations exist to enrich shareholders and nothing more.
- xherberta 6y agoIf the US hadn't dropped the ball on enforcing existing antitrust laws in the 80s and 90s, we wouldn't have to ask. Perhaps many more regular people would own productive enterprises, and wouldn't be looking to government to address inequality. Now that both corporations and government are so big and intrusive that they're somewhere between a nuisance and prohibitive toward small-scale enterprise, we should at least think about ways to sic them on each other.
- airstrike 6y ago> Corporations should never be allowed to get this large. Ok, I'll bite. Why? It's not like there's some natural law against it, so you need to provide an argument for why you think they shouldn't.
- agloeregrets 6y agoThe obvious argument is the adage that "If a company's only goal is to grow at any cost it is not a company. It's a cancer." Secondary item is that a company of this scale has the ends and means to ward off any competitor and eventually set the wages for an industry. Companies scaling to this size is evidence that the taxation system is too lax and allows money to be funneled out of the loop. Think of it like a pool pump that has sprung a leak. It keeps sucking in but not pupping out into the pool, Amazon is amassing this money by NOT spending it on the economy. Eventually your pool will be stuck at the lowest line of the pump inlet.
- dantheman 6y agoAmazon is amassing money by transforming the world and increasing efficiency. Everyone is richer, it's not a zero sum game.
- andrewjl 6y agoWhy is increasing efficiency always net good?
- dantheman 6y agoBecause we get more than we had before. As costs go down, the risk of innovation goes down, we're able to be more responsive, able to do new things. People are able to have more variety to meet their individual needs and preferences. In short we get more or work less and the overall quality of life for everyone increases.
- andrewjl 6y ago
- cafed00d 6y ago> It's $280.5 billion in revenue in 2019 put it above the GDP of Romania, Peru, Ukraine, etc. > Corporations should never be allowed to get this large. Or maybe we should convince a larger swath of humanity to unite behind an idea larger than "nationhood" or "my country".
- ep103 6y agoa larger organization... like a corporation?
- yourself92 6y agoMaybe I'm just pessimistic but I doubt that will happen until there is a clear existential crisis for humanity. It will always be a matter of "us vs them" it's just a matter of who is "us" or "them"
- splistud 6y agoAn existential crisis for humanity is absolutely NOT the kind of climate that would cause humans to stop valuing a nation, a people, a culture, or their ancestry. I would argue that it is only the benign environment that most humans have enjoyed for the last 60 years or so that has caused these values to mean less than they always have.
- WitCanStain 6y agoA for-profit corporation seems like a terrible candidate for such a position.
- bwship 6y agoI would say in terms of anti-monopoly, that there is some natural cutoff that companies are forced to split. For instance, AWS and Amazon can easily be two separate companies as the missions and revenue streams of each are vastly different.
- dleslie 6y agoIt has 1.3 million employees and employs a great deal more through its distribution partnerships, sellers using Amazon storefront and so on. The amount of folks who rely on Amazon for their living is probably comparable to some of those countries you listed.
- systemvoltage 6y agoI think corporations should get absurdly large. You know, I’m saying things without substantiating them. No offense, but anti-Corp is cool these days. Virtue signaling without thinking on one’s own.
- GizmoSwan 6y agoBeing pro too large to fail corps has always been suspicious.
- golemotron 6y ago> Corporations should never be allowed to get this large. Countries either. Why did we allow it?
- handmodel 6y agoI don't get the comparison here tbh. The valuation of of AMZN is based on assets + future time-discounted dividends. While, those wealth figures for Saudi Arabia are just assets. After all Saudi Aramco, which is mostly state owned, is worth about 1T.
- bpodgursky 6y agoWhy should a global business never exceed the GDP of a 4 million person nation? I don't see any inherent connection.
- Bostonian 6y agoThat's the equivalent of saying "corporations should be limited in what services they provide and to how many people". And I disagree with that.
- titzer 6y agoIt's equivalent to a lot of different sentences. Any given market has a maximum size, so if you want to limit the size of a corporations' market share, you are absolutely limiting "what services they provide and to how many people". Or are you totally for monopolies?
- spoonjim 6y agoFirst, Amazon isn’t even worth as much as the oil under Saudi Arabia, second, why is it better that murderer Mohammed Bin Salman controls that much wealth than Jeff Bezos?
- thehappypm 6y agoMarket Cap is stupid. What's the value of 1 million shares of Amazon stock? If every single share of Amazon stock went on the market today, would it be worth share price * number of units? Hell no.
- SllX 6y ago> Corporations should never be allowed to get this large. Make your case instead of dropping your groupthink everywhere. Why? And: What is the maximum size a corporation should be allowed to grow? Who gives that permission now?
- ufmace 6y agoWould also want to know, once you decide the maximum size of a corporation, exactly what happens to it once it exceeds that size, and who determines that it has infact exceeded it, and carries out whatever the plan is for what happens at that time.
- burkaman 6y agoIn the US, Congress decides the rules, the FTC and the Department of Justice decide when they believe a corporation is too large, and the court system decides if they're right. The corporation can then be stopped from acquiring other businesses, stopped from executing certain business practices, or broken up into smaller companies. Generally a judge ensures that the plan is carried out.
- burkaman 6y agoBecause money is power, corporations are not democratic, and putting so much power in the hands of one person or a handful of people is dangerous to society. I would also refer you to the entire history of US antitrust law, which will be hard for anyone to summarize in a comment. The whole field of competition law is a question of how to balance the rights of those running a business with the rights of those affected by the business. Often those rights conflict, and there is no way for the law to be "neutral", it has to take a position on how to strike the right balance. I don't have an answer for how to determine when a corporation is too large, it's a very difficult question that I am not qualified to answer. As for who determines that, I think a democratic government should decide. I disagree with how the current US government makes these decisions, but I still think it is the right organization for the job.
- gher-shyu3i 6y ago
- titzer 6y ago> Corporations should never be allowed to get this large. This is partly why I left Google.
- mr_toad 6y agoDon’t compare revenue to GDP. Especially for a low margin business.
- Artistry121 6y agoI’m glad Amazon is larger and more powerful than most nation states.