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Politicians are notorious for only seeing as far as the next election. Shareholders are notorious for only the seeing the business as a speculative asset to be

Politicians are notorious for only seeing as far as the next election. Shareholders are notorious for only the seeing the business as a speculative asset to be flipped for a profit. Governments clearly can handle long-term thinking, as can private companies. But only if they're left alone to do that.

roenxi 2y ago
You've missed the key stakeholder group - shareholders have to find a Buyer to flip something for a profit, who cares about the longer term prospects of the business. The buyer is not prefect, but they're better incentivised than anyone else.
- marcus_holmes 2y ago
  Unless of course the Buyer is another speculator who is only interested in flipping the business for a short-term profit
dragonwriter 2y ago
You mean, bureaucracies: without the politicians or shareholders you want to leave them alone, they aren’t governments or companies, just blind bureaucracies, with no long term goal to plan for but the perpetuation of the bureaucracy.
- marcus_holmes 2y ago
  I like to think there's a middle ground somewhere between speculators and bureaucracies; a group of people who are actually interested and incentivised to serve the customer and perform the function of the organisation to the best of their ability. I may be too naive.
  - dragonwriter 2y ago
    The existence of such people isn't (I don't think) in question, the question is how you organize a system so that their being in a position to run an organization isn't an unstable, non-equilibrium state. It is not just bad luck or accident that businesses at scale, while they may temporarily be run by idealists of that or other stripes, either fail or end up run by people whose interests is in having the organization run as an optimized profit-returning (either directly or by increasing stock value so that investors can realize gains by liquidating some part of their holdings) machine above all else. It is the structural incentives of the system in which they operate.

roenxi 2y ago

You've missed the key stakeholder group - shareholders have to find a Buyer to flip something for a profit, who cares about the longer term prospects of the business. The buyer is not prefect, but they're better incentivised than anyone else.

marcus_holmes 2y ago
Unless of course the Buyer is another speculator who is only interested in flipping the business for a short-term profit

dragonwriter 2y ago

You mean, bureaucracies: without the politicians or shareholders you want to leave them alone, they aren’t governments or companies, just blind bureaucracies, with no long term goal to plan for but the perpetuation of the bureaucracy.

marcus_holmes 2y ago
I like to think there's a middle ground somewhere between speculators and bureaucracies; a group of people who are actually interested and incentivised to serve the customer and perform the function of the organisation to the best of their ability. I may be too naive.
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  The existence of such people isn't (I don't think) in question, the question is how you organize a system so that their being in a position to run an organization isn't an unstable, non-equilibrium state. It is not just bad luck or accident that businesses at scale, while they may temporarily be run by idealists of that or other stripes, either fail or end up run by people whose interests is in having the organization run as an optimized profit-returning (either directly or by increasing stock value so that investors can realize gains by liquidating some part of their holdings) machine above all else. It is the structural incentives of the system in which they operate.