7 ms·

A Brief History of the Corporation: 1600 to 2100

161 points by thunk 15y ago

randomwalker 15y ago
I just want to point out that this guy is also the author of The Gervais Principle[1], a 4-part saga that offers an incisive, brilliant and depressingly accurate analysis of the human psyche as it applies to workers in a corporation. It's probably the most awesome thing I've ever read in blog format, and I'm looking forward to reading this essay. It looks like the site is supported by donations, which I just did. [1] http://www.google.com/search?q=the+gervais+principle http://www.google.com/search?q=the+gervais+principle
- zackattack 15y ago
  Venkat's essays have helped me understand memetic grooming in a new context
- JoachimSchipper 15y ago
  Venkatesh is entirely supported by book sales (Tempo) and blog donations: he doesn't have regular income nowadays.
- clistctrl 15y ago
  The post linked to in this thread has been literally the most interesting thing I've read, in quite a while. Thanks for linking me to more :D
davidw 15y ago
Interesting. He's certainly well read, but the conclusion sort of fizzles in my opinion. > How do we measure Coasean growth? I have no idea. I am open to suggestions. All I know is that the metric will need to be hyper-personalized and relative to individuals rather than countries, corporations or the global economy. He seems to be pointing at a future where transaction costs between individuals are lower, so there's less need to organize people into Large Organizations. (See: Coase's Nature of the Firm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_the_Firm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_the_Firm ) Fair enough, but I don't see companies going away, as you still need someplace to invest capital/pool resources to be spent, to create large-scale projects, whether they're created by employees or by freelancers. Sort of on the same topic, this book talks about economic organizational models in the west vs the middle east, and how the former pulled ahead of the latter in part due to better institutions: http://t.co/vumpwKy http://t.co/vumpwKy It's a bit long-winded at times, and repeats itself, but the subject is, IMO, interesting.
- quadhome 15y ago
  > Fair enough, but I don't see companies going away, as you still need someplace to invest capital/pool resources to be spent, to create large-scale projects, whether they're created by employees or by freelancers. I think he's saying those sorts of investments will be fewer and further between.
hessenwolf 15y ago
Culture, policitics, war and business = decreasing strength order? Isn't this almost the opposite of the Maslow hierarchy, with food, safety, belonging and esteem, self-actualizing? He is only a few paragraphs in and he has drawn a causation diagram backwards.
- davidw 15y ago
  I think he's saying that it can be harder to change cultures than it is to say, simply invade a country. The US rolled into Iraq with no problems at all, but how long would it take to truly change the people and culture? Would it even be possible?
  - pavlov 15y ago
    Caesar's invasion of Gaul changed the people and culture. Modern France still acknowledges a direct cultural link with the Roman era, while there's barely anything remaining of the Celts who were invaded. Granted, it took hundreds of years. Present-day imperialists lack that kind of patience.
    - davidw 15y ago
      > it took hundreds of years Compared with a few years for the wars. That's the point - it's easier to wage war than to change a culture. Another interesting book along these lines is this one: A Language History of the World http://t.co/f80cwQo http://t.co/f80cwQo It uses languages to look at where they 'stuck' and where they didn't, why, how, and so on.
    - TheloniusPhunk 15y ago
      That's a good point. Invading Gaul et al. was probably more lucrative than invading a country like Afghanistan as the Romans were more obviously and unabashedly imperialistic and that war had to do with territorial expansion. The invasion of Gaul is more akin to the way (relatively) early Americans forced out the Native Americans, and their culture certainly changed/doesn't really exist anymore. WWII Japan and Nazi Germany are examples of a places where a short war changed the culture. The reason it won't work any more is because that style of 'total war' appears to have gone out of style. Probably a good thing, though Fareed Zakaria was on the Daily Show the other night talking about how one reason America has been so powerful is because Europe was leveled in WWII and the US had the industry to rebuild.
hootmon 15y ago
Pure Korpo Fascist apologist hack at work here... Kind of skipped over the whole 'US was founded on the premise of keeping corporations from having citizenship rights'. Korps in decline, I think not, rights of real people in decline, rights of corporations on the continued rise.
wazoox 15y ago
<rant>These little ramblings on the future of corporations in 2100 is no better than discussions around the number of angels atop a pin head. All of these economic references without any ground in the reality of a finite world annoy me to no end. It's time both for academics and bloggers together to get in touch with reality : the planet is finite. Resources are limited. We'll be running out of them fast. All common -- and many less common, like in this article -- economic theories written by people ignoring the second law of thermodynamics (or as a physicist said "[these economists] can't even change a tyre") are bunk. Yes, I think that only hard-core environmentalists are looking in the right direction, and we're a bunch of fools. The Titanic is sinking but the orchestra's still playing. </rant> tl;dr: I'm extremely pessimistic about the future. This sort of happy, dreamy nonsense gets on my nerves.
- rapind 15y ago
  I'm with you. This opinion is extremely unpopular though because it requires so many lifestyle consumption changes for all of us. It's like knowing you have a serious illness, but putting off a visit to the doctor's to confirm it, because then you'll have to take steps that'll impact your lifestyle (I.e. quit smoking / drinking / drugs).
  - Shorel 15y ago
    No one will change his/her lifestyle unless some extreme conditions apply. Therefore, almost nobody will change lifestyle. But it doesn't matter, as we all die, and we are replaced by people with a different mindset/lifestyle. E.g. smokers die of cancer, new generations smoke less.
- vorg 15y ago
  > the planet is finite. Resources are limited. We'll be running out of them fast. Our earth is just one of billions of planets in our galaxy alone.
  - khafra 15y ago
    It's been over 40 years since we went to the moon. How close are we to mining asteroids for rare earth metals and meeting our energy needs from non-terrestrial sources? How long do you think we have to get it right?
zipdog 15y ago
Some good points but the idea of Peak Attention seems to be conflated with focus. Its one thing to have the captive attention of a tv audience, but its a completely different thing for a team of people to have joint focus on a task. The later is what gets things done, the former is just a way of passing time for those without the motivation to entertain themselves.
hapless 15y ago
Section I (EIC) was amusing. I didn't make it all the way through Section II (Taylorism). Citing such unreliable institutions as paragons of business virtue destroys your credibility. The American railroads that conquered the west were grossly inefficient. Their "success" was sustained almost entirely by malfeasance, corruption, and the unchecked abuse of eminent domain. Taylor was a fraud at best and a liar at worst. Taylorism and its cronies are possibly the greatest curse on our age.

161 points by thunk 15y ago

I just want to point out that this guy is also the author of The Gervais Principle[1], a 4-part saga that offers an incisive, brilliant and depressingly accurate analysis of the human psyche as it applies to workers in a corporation. It's probably the most awesome thing I've ever read in blog format, and I'm looking forward to reading this essay. It looks like the site is supported by donations, which I just did. [1] http://www.google.com/search?q=the+gervais+principle http://www.google.com/search?q=the+gervais+principle

zackattack 15y ago
Venkat's essays have helped me understand memetic grooming in a new context
JoachimSchipper 15y ago
Venkatesh is entirely supported by book sales (Tempo) and blog donations: he doesn't have regular income nowadays.
clistctrl 15y ago
The post linked to in this thread has been literally the most interesting thing I've read, in quite a while. Thanks for linking me to more :D

davidw 15y ago

Interesting. He's certainly well read, but the conclusion sort of fizzles in my opinion. > How do we measure Coasean growth? I have no idea. I am open to suggestions. All I know is that the metric will need to be hyper-personalized and relative to individuals rather than countries, corporations or the global economy. He seems to be pointing at a future where transaction costs between individuals are lower, so there's less need to organize people into Large Organizations. (See: Coase's Nature of the Firm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_the_Firm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_the_Firm ) Fair enough, but I don't see companies going away, as you still need someplace to invest capital/pool resources to be spent, to create large-scale projects, whether they're created by employees or by freelancers. Sort of on the same topic, this book talks about economic organizational models in the west vs the middle east, and how the former pulled ahead of the latter in part due to better institutions: http://t.co/vumpwKy http://t.co/vumpwKy It's a bit long-winded at times, and repeats itself, but the subject is, IMO, interesting.

quadhome 15y ago
> Fair enough, but I don't see companies going away, as you still need someplace to invest capital/pool resources to be spent, to create large-scale projects, whether they're created by employees or by freelancers. I think he's saying those sorts of investments will be fewer and further between.

hessenwolf 15y ago

Culture, policitics, war and business = decreasing strength order? Isn't this almost the opposite of the Maslow hierarchy, with food, safety, belonging and esteem, self-actualizing? He is only a few paragraphs in and he has drawn a causation diagram backwards.

davidw 15y ago
I think he's saying that it can be harder to change cultures than it is to say, simply invade a country. The US rolled into Iraq with no problems at all, but how long would it take to truly change the people and culture? Would it even be possible?
- pavlov 15y ago
  Caesar's invasion of Gaul changed the people and culture. Modern France still acknowledges a direct cultural link with the Roman era, while there's barely anything remaining of the Celts who were invaded. Granted, it took hundreds of years. Present-day imperialists lack that kind of patience.
  - davidw 15y ago
    > it took hundreds of years Compared with a few years for the wars. That's the point - it's easier to wage war than to change a culture. Another interesting book along these lines is this one: A Language History of the World http://t.co/f80cwQo http://t.co/f80cwQo It uses languages to look at where they 'stuck' and where they didn't, why, how, and so on.
  - TheloniusPhunk 15y ago
    That's a good point. Invading Gaul et al. was probably more lucrative than invading a country like Afghanistan as the Romans were more obviously and unabashedly imperialistic and that war had to do with territorial expansion. The invasion of Gaul is more akin to the way (relatively) early Americans forced out the Native Americans, and their culture certainly changed/doesn't really exist anymore. WWII Japan and Nazi Germany are examples of a places where a short war changed the culture. The reason it won't work any more is because that style of 'total war' appears to have gone out of style. Probably a good thing, though Fareed Zakaria was on the Daily Show the other night talking about how one reason America has been so powerful is because Europe was leveled in WWII and the US had the industry to rebuild.

hootmon 15y ago

Pure Korpo Fascist apologist hack at work here... Kind of skipped over the whole 'US was founded on the premise of keeping corporations from having citizenship rights'. Korps in decline, I think not, rights of real people in decline, rights of corporations on the continued rise.

wazoox 15y ago

<rant>These little ramblings on the future of corporations in 2100 is no better than discussions around the number of angels atop a pin head. All of these economic references without any ground in the reality of a finite world annoy me to no end. It's time both for academics and bloggers together to get in touch with reality : the planet is finite. Resources are limited. We'll be running out of them fast. All common -- and many less common, like in this article -- economic theories written by people ignoring the second law of thermodynamics (or as a physicist said "[these economists] can't even change a tyre") are bunk. Yes, I think that only hard-core environmentalists are looking in the right direction, and we're a bunch of fools. The Titanic is sinking but the orchestra's still playing. </rant> tl;dr: I'm extremely pessimistic about the future. This sort of happy, dreamy nonsense gets on my nerves.

rapind 15y ago
I'm with you. This opinion is extremely unpopular though because it requires so many lifestyle consumption changes for all of us. It's like knowing you have a serious illness, but putting off a visit to the doctor's to confirm it, because then you'll have to take steps that'll impact your lifestyle (I.e. quit smoking / drinking / drugs).
- Shorel 15y ago
  No one will change his/her lifestyle unless some extreme conditions apply. Therefore, almost nobody will change lifestyle. But it doesn't matter, as we all die, and we are replaced by people with a different mindset/lifestyle. E.g. smokers die of cancer, new generations smoke less.
vorg 15y ago
> the planet is finite. Resources are limited. We'll be running out of them fast. Our earth is just one of billions of planets in our galaxy alone.
- khafra 15y ago
  It's been over 40 years since we went to the moon. How close are we to mining asteroids for rare earth metals and meeting our energy needs from non-terrestrial sources? How long do you think we have to get it right?

zipdog 15y ago

Some good points but the idea of Peak Attention seems to be conflated with focus. Its one thing to have the captive attention of a tv audience, but its a completely different thing for a team of people to have joint focus on a task. The later is what gets things done, the former is just a way of passing time for those without the motivation to entertain themselves.

hapless 15y ago

Section I (EIC) was amusing. I didn't make it all the way through Section II (Taylorism). Citing such unreliable institutions as paragons of business virtue destroys your credibility. The American railroads that conquered the west were grossly inefficient. Their "success" was sustained almost entirely by malfeasance, corruption, and the unchecked abuse of eminent domain. Taylor was a fraud at best and a liar at worst. Taylorism and its cronies are possibly the greatest curse on our age.