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> Individuals optimize for their own (often short-term) economic benefit. That's it. Don't go to too far with this sort of atomistic analysis. Large firms are
by Ericson2314 5y ago
> Individuals optimize for their own (often short-term) economic benefit. That's it.
Don't go to too far with this sort of atomistic analysis. Large firms are better at enforcing coordination than "society at-large" or other groupings. The fact that at different scales the coordination is markedly different has a huge affect.
We're not an "economy of households" as the orthodox macro might have one model.
- ohazi 5y ago> Large firms are better at enforcing coordination than "society at-large" or other groupings. The "large firms" that I'm familiar with are cesspools of political infighting, gamesmanship, and backstabbing. People in positions of power at these firms use their influence to achieve their own goals, often at the expense of the firm and its employees. The counterexamples to this are so singularly rare that they are the exception that proves the rule.
- WalterBright 5y agoThis is why larger companies tend to fail rather than growing to take over the world. There's another recent HN topic about how IBM's size prevented it from competing successfully in the PC market: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27912138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27912138
- Ericson2314 5y agoIt's still miles above the e.g. non-interaction of neighbors in the same cookie cutter subdivision. The fact that people fight over how to divy up a budget vs have completely separate revenue and accounts says a lot, despite all the stuff you talk about.