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I guess I forgot to repeat the part about "extremely large" there. But I mean like "all economies of scale beyond a certain point". In any case, I'm not sure

I guess I forgot to repeat the part about "extremely large" there. But I mean like "all economies of scale beyond a certain point". In any case, I'm not sure I agree that economies of scale are the thing keeping food on the table. Like, yes, we want nails to be made in some efficient way, but that's not what I mean by "economies of scale". What I'm talking about is the size of the companies involved. If there are 10 factories making nails, I'd rather have them be run by 10 different companies than one. And you might be able to convince me that 9 or 8 or even 5 companies is reasonable, but not one or two. The process that the companies use can involve something that you might call an "economy of scale" in the sense that you need to be making X number of nails before it becomes feasible to shift from artisans to factories. But you have to make sure that the economies of scale are facilitating the making of nails rather than the making of money for the nail companies.

jakewins 3y ago
I’m being unnecessarily confrontational because I’m having a bad day, sorry, that’s not helpful. I would say this: I agree with you that massive faceless monopolies with no accountability are terrible, and often a direct consequence of economies of scale. It is also, simultaneously, true that the labour saving effects - human hours spent per calorie of food or pair of socks - is a number of orders of magnitude such that modern society (ie the not starving/not freezing part of it) could not exist without it. These two things are simultaneously true, which is what makes the problem hard; we want one effect of economies of scale and not the other.
- politician 3y ago
  A way out: Does your example apply beyond the necessities of basic survival? We can take it as an axiom that it would not serve humanity for oxygen to be distributed on credit on the Moon.
- BrenBarn 3y ago
  I mean, again, I think that's true, but only up to a point. Basically what I'm saying is that up to a certain point economies of scale are good for production, and beyond that they mostly just become good for profit. I feel like the main problem people are having with my comment is I said "virtually all" economies of scale and forgot to say "beyond a certain point". By "all" I meant "across all domains" (as opposed to just content moderation), not "of every possible size all the way down to individual artisans". I agree that there is some level of economy of scale that is probably required for things like production of clothes, but I think we should try to keep companies close to that level.
ric2b 3y ago
You're not using the common definition of "economy of scale" and that is leading to confusion. Maybe use "mega-corporations" or something like that? Your mention of 9 companies vs 2 also tells me you're trying to describe oligopolies.
mschuster91 3y ago
> If there are 10 factories making nails, I'd rather have them be run by 10 different companies than one. And you might be able to convince me that 9 or 8 or even 5 companies is reasonable, but not one or two. Well, a nail is fungible, as are many other products. So what you'll end up with instead is a bad situation on its own. The 10 nail factories win sales contracts by competing on price (obviously), so there is a massive incentive for the companies to undercut each other by going offshore, exploiting their staff (which usually leads to an enshittification across the industry), exploiting the environment (by "saving" on emission mitigation or outright handing waste over to the mafia instead of recycling) or by cutting corners in the process (water down the material composition with cheaper raw materials or be less strict in outgoing QA and hope the customer doesn't notice). In the end you have 10 companies shipping crap nails but since they were so much cheaper than what was there before, there are no high quality nails on the market, and no bank will give anyone a loan to try and start up a company selling high quality nails. We've seen that happening quite often over the last decades... UK and German public transport where the "private" competitors have reduced staff and maintenance to the utter bare minimum, "chinesium" being so widespread it's a legitimate meme, or by Europe being completely dependent on India and China for basic pharmaceutical compounds. In contrast, a government controlled (or outright owned!) monopolist has entirely different priorities, and the customers/citizens will get high quality products again.
- pixl97 3y ago
  Um if the government in question is beholden to its people, otherwise it's just a means of enriching oligarchs.

jakewins 3y ago

I’m being unnecessarily confrontational because I’m having a bad day, sorry, that’s not helpful. I would say this: I agree with you that massive faceless monopolies with no accountability are terrible, and often a direct consequence of economies of scale. It is also, simultaneously, true that the labour saving effects - human hours spent per calorie of food or pair of socks - is a number of orders of magnitude such that modern society (ie the not starving/not freezing part of it) could not exist without it. These two things are simultaneously true, which is what makes the problem hard; we want one effect of economies of scale and not the other.

politician 3y ago
A way out: Does your example apply beyond the necessities of basic survival? We can take it as an axiom that it would not serve humanity for oxygen to be distributed on credit on the Moon.
BrenBarn 3y ago
I mean, again, I think that's true, but only up to a point. Basically what I'm saying is that up to a certain point economies of scale are good for production, and beyond that they mostly just become good for profit. I feel like the main problem people are having with my comment is I said "virtually all" economies of scale and forgot to say "beyond a certain point". By "all" I meant "across all domains" (as opposed to just content moderation), not "of every possible size all the way down to individual artisans". I agree that there is some level of economy of scale that is probably required for things like production of clothes, but I think we should try to keep companies close to that level.

ric2b 3y ago

You're not using the common definition of "economy of scale" and that is leading to confusion. Maybe use "mega-corporations" or something like that? Your mention of 9 companies vs 2 also tells me you're trying to describe oligopolies.

mschuster91 3y ago

> If there are 10 factories making nails, I'd rather have them be run by 10 different companies than one. And you might be able to convince me that 9 or 8 or even 5 companies is reasonable, but not one or two. Well, a nail is fungible, as are many other products. So what you'll end up with instead is a bad situation on its own. The 10 nail factories win sales contracts by competing on price (obviously), so there is a massive incentive for the companies to undercut each other by going offshore, exploiting their staff (which usually leads to an enshittification across the industry), exploiting the environment (by "saving" on emission mitigation or outright handing waste over to the mafia instead of recycling) or by cutting corners in the process (water down the material composition with cheaper raw materials or be less strict in outgoing QA and hope the customer doesn't notice). In the end you have 10 companies shipping crap nails but since they were so much cheaper than what was there before, there are no high quality nails on the market, and no bank will give anyone a loan to try and start up a company selling high quality nails. We've seen that happening quite often over the last decades... UK and German public transport where the "private" competitors have reduced staff and maintenance to the utter bare minimum, "chinesium" being so widespread it's a legitimate meme, or by Europe being completely dependent on India and China for basic pharmaceutical compounds. In contrast, a government controlled (or outright owned!) monopolist has entirely different priorities, and the customers/citizens will get high quality products again.

pixl97 3y ago
Um if the government in question is beholden to its people, otherwise it's just a means of enriching oligarchs.