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So what you're saying is that companies should never employ people or put capital to work in more than one country or do anything else across borders that requi

So what you're saying is that companies should never employ people or put capital to work in more than one country or do anything else across borders that requires a legal entity that can be locally regulated, taxed and held accountable. All failing companies should be liquidated and sold off in bits and pieces, employees fired, contracts and debts voided, pension schemes closed. Entrenched local incumbents could only ever be disrupted by individuals starting new companies, funded exclusively by other individuals. Presumably, none of these individuals would be allowed to own a controlling stake in another company, otherwise it would effectively be one company. You would have to convince those wealthy individuals to start companies in small countries in spite of the fact that the growth potential of their company would be far more limited than if they started a company in a big country. The only incentive would be local protectionism. You would also have to make sure that companies don't enter into contractual relationships that effectively make them act as one (such as McDonald's franchises) You would effectively hand absolute power to local family clans and oligarchs closely intertwined with local bureaucrats and politicians. It's a recipe for stagnation and corruption. This is not a glass half full and it's not moderation. It's a glass smashed in an act of vandalism and blind rage. It's the sort of revolution that countries take a century to recover from. Turning the clocks back a couple of centuries is not progressive either.

jacquesm 5y ago
> So what you're saying is that companies should never employ people [in more than one country] No, that's not what I'm saying, besides that could be easily covered through employment law, but we already have the concept of internationally operating free-lancers. > or do anything else across borders that requires a legal entity that can be locally regulated, taxed and held accountable. Not if that legal entity is going to have a company as its shareholders. But there would be no reason why it could not exist and have natural persons as its shareholders, they could even be the same shareholders as in some other company abroad. You are still arguing about this from the perspective of everything that it can't do, which is pretty easy to deal with because most of those things it can do. What it can't do is to hide the UBOs, which is really the only big change. Everything else can easily be worked around.
- fauigerzigerk 5y ago
  >You are still arguing about this from the perspective of everything that it can't do No, I also told you what I think it would do. Create a corrupt local oligarchy that is extremely hard to disrupt. It would create a mediocre, low productivity, stagnant economy shaped by the most extreme form of protectionism I have ever heard of. >Everything else can easily be worked around. Your use of the word "easy" for something that would require a root and branch redesign of company law, tax law, employment law, competition law and scores of other laws in every country on earth tells me that you really haven't thought this through. Not to speak of changing the ownership structure of tens of thousands of existing companies.

jacquesm 5y ago

> So what you're saying is that companies should never employ people [in more than one country] No, that's not what I'm saying, besides that could be easily covered through employment law, but we already have the concept of internationally operating free-lancers. > or do anything else across borders that requires a legal entity that can be locally regulated, taxed and held accountable. Not if that legal entity is going to have a company as its shareholders. But there would be no reason why it could not exist and have natural persons as its shareholders, they could even be the same shareholders as in some other company abroad. You are still arguing about this from the perspective of everything that it can't do, which is pretty easy to deal with because most of those things it can do. What it can't do is to hide the UBOs, which is really the only big change. Everything else can easily be worked around.

fauigerzigerk 5y ago
>You are still arguing about this from the perspective of everything that it can't do No, I also told you what I think it would do. Create a corrupt local oligarchy that is extremely hard to disrupt. It would create a mediocre, low productivity, stagnant economy shaped by the most extreme form of protectionism I have ever heard of. >Everything else can easily be worked around. Your use of the word "easy" for something that would require a root and branch redesign of company law, tax law, employment law, competition law and scores of other laws in every country on earth tells me that you really haven't thought this through. Not to speak of changing the ownership structure of tens of thousands of existing companies.