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The book Zero to One has pretty questionable economics. I'm paraphrasing here, it's been a long time, but his thesis is that in a competitive situation life of
by eru 1y ago
The book Zero to One has pretty questionable economics.
I'm paraphrasing here, it's been a long time, but his thesis is that in a competitive situation life of a company is nasty, brutish and short. And that might be true, but that doesn't mean that life for customers or shareholders or workers is anything like that.
Part of why companies have it so hard in harsh competition is that they have to pay workers well in order to attract them, and they have to offer customers real value for money (if they want to keep getting their money), and companies also have to give decent returns to shareholders.
- pessimizer 1y agoI have no idea what you mean by "questionable economics" here. You seem to be saying that it seems true, but doesn't conform to your values.
- Workaccount2 1y agoThe core reason people hate/distrust/discredit economics is because it lays out a lot of solid yet uncomfortable or unfortunate points. People just really really don't want to know that the economic world is just as trying and punishing as the real world.
- eru 1y agoHuh? Economics as a discipline is great. Orthodox economics is exactly what I'm drawing on with my comment.
- radlad 1y agoThe economics are questionable in a moral sense - monopolies are widely considered to be good for the monopoly's shareholders and bad for everyone else.
- eru 1y agoNo, it's questionable in that competition might be ruinous for the company, but it's great for workers, customers, shareholders and innovation.
- eru 1y agoNo. I'm saying that he's wrong. Competition is great for innovation, workers, customers and shareholders.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- lokar 1y agoThe 19th century phrase used in public to justify building monopolistic “trusts” was avoiding “ruinous competition”, the nation would be better off with a few big monopolies