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Is that a bad thing? Democracies, even if flawed, are accountable to their citizens at least to an extent. Their power structures aren't dictatorial, like in a

Is that a bad thing? Democracies, even if flawed, are accountable to their citizens at least to an extent. Their power structures aren't dictatorial, like in a company, and can be steered and course-corrected. Private companies are accountable to no one, their only motivator and reason for existence is profit. If they're allowed to run our society, the outcome that we're seemingly inching towards, there will be nothing to stop their inevitable abuse for the sake of value extraction.

aleph_minus_one 1y ago
> Democracies, even if flawed, are accountable to their citizens at least to an extent. Stock corporation, even if flawed, are accountable to their stock holders at least to an extent; thus your point > Private companies are accountable to no one clearly does not hold. Corporations, of course, can also be steered and course-corrected (shareholders meetings).
- _aavaa_ 1y ago
  Corporations are in principle and practice accountable to those with more money. For all its flaws our democracy is still one person one vote.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    >For all its flaws our democracy is still one person one vote. Which seems to just devolve to "the lizards listen to whoever/whatever has money" at the high levels where the number of voters is very high.
    - radlad 1y ago
      Some governments restrict the extent to which "lizards" can use their money to gain air time, etc.
      - actionfromafar 1y ago
        Lizards must not obstructed in any way! Consume! Obey!
  - HPsquared 1y ago
    Corporations are still subject to law and ultimately under the control of the government. The current set of rules just gives them a fair amount of freedom to operate.
    - tavavex 1y ago
      This only makes sense in a spherical-cow-in-vacuum world where government and business are somehow barred from communicating with one another. In reality, the "current set of rules" in many countries is a result of companies relentlessly trying to and succeeding in finding ways of influencing government. Political advertisements, campaign funding, lobbying, corruption, underhanded favoritism, countless other methods that are an amazing RoI for any business large enough to engage in it. Large enough corporations are resembling governments more and more in terms of value and power, and they use all of that power to endlessly try to bend the rest of society into serving their profit motive.
  - slt2021 1y ago
    [dead]
  - sally_glance 1y ago
    It seems to me none of this is as clear cut as it seems. Government entities may hold shares in private companies, companies may act on voter's demands by accepting government grants. For some companies, government contracts are actually a main revenue stream - shareholders can jump up and down, if their supporters are voted out they will falter.
- Ar-Curunir 1y ago
  The unit of power in stock corporations is dollars, while in democracies it is personhood. In the former, one person can acquire multiple units, while in the latter they cannot. There is an obvious difference.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > while in democracies it is personhood Suffrage*. Not personhood.
- tavavex 1y ago
  1. Not all companies are publicly traded, and they don't have to be 2. The 'voting' and 'steering' in a corporation is also completely dependent on money. The value of your 'vote' is proportional to how much money you have. This isn't a democracy or some sort of equal system that will converge on serving people, it will converge on serving money. I'm genuinely baffled at how "you get one vote per person" and "your value and voting power is directly tied to your net worth" are in any way comparable. You and I have zero effective power over them, and always will.
  - aianus 1y ago
    > The 'voting' and 'steering' in a corporation is also completely dependent on money. It is not, eg. Zuck didn't control Facebook because he was a priori rich, he became rich because he controlled Facebook in a successful way. He gained those shares and that control with his skill and labor (and maybe one symbolic dollar or something).
- mschuster91 1y ago
  The problem is, when the majority is held by pension funds, ETFs and Blackrock... there isn't much governance in practice, particularly from the low-fee purely passive ETFs. And since government run pension schemes are on their way to the gutter in favor of stonk market private pensions, the share of such dumb passive capital will only grow.
- oldchestnts 1y ago
  [dead]
- TehCorwiz 1y ago
  No, a corp is only accountable to their board and the LARGEST shareholder. A single person can control an otherwise publicly traded company. Zuckerberg, for example. And not everyone can afford to spend their earnings owning companies. So what you get with a democracy is that power is spread out by default rather than concentrated in a single element. Default enfranchisement rather than the polar opposite. One at least nods politely at the idea of upward social mobility in passing while the other eschews all pretense as to the status of its party invitation.
- XorNot 1y ago
  Corporations only have any accountability in so far as the law of the nation-state they're incorporated in grants it. Corporations only exist as a legal construct of other entities. Absent government, they wouldn't be corporations since there'd be no law to create them.
ls612 1y ago
If there is one thing that we learned from the 20th century it is that societies that gave more private control over how resources were used did better than those that had more state control over how resources were used. Perhaps in the 21st century that has changed, but for me that falls under the "extraordinary claims" category with the corresponding evidence requirements.
- radlad 1y ago
  > If there is one thing that we learned from the 20th century it is that societies that gave more private control over how resources were used did better than those that had more state control over how resources were used. In some metrics (such as GDP), yes. And in other metrics (such as wealth inequality and health care), the answer is less clear-cut.
  - ls612 1y ago
    The Soviet bloc did not have better healthcare than the West lol. Soviet life expectancy never crossed above 70 years.
    - radlad 1y ago
      The West encompasses a wide gradient of private vs. state control over resources, and there are states which aren't typically considered Soviet or Western (e.g. Nordic states.)
- sigilis 1y ago
  The structure of giant corporations today is like those centralized societies that were so inefficient in your example. The mandates to put AI in everything are one example of out of touch leadership throwing money and effort blindly towards things of dubious value. The sycophantic managers, afraid that they will be eliminated for insufficient fervor for the board’s latest fascination, will seize upon anything to prove themselves loyal and useful to those above them. By moving the locus of control, whether it be considered the ceo or shareholders, so far from the actual business and implementing mandates based on whatever the current fancy is and meaningless targets of growth on such a giant scale you get the same sort of excesses. The current system is marked by irrationality and uninformed and ill considered decision making. With smaller organizations and actual business competition they would be held to account by their competitors or just by running out of money before something catastrophic for the greater economy happened.

aleph_minus_one 1y ago

> Democracies, even if flawed, are accountable to their citizens at least to an extent. Stock corporation, even if flawed, are accountable to their stock holders at least to an extent; thus your point > Private companies are accountable to no one clearly does not hold. Corporations, of course, can also be steered and course-corrected (shareholders meetings).

_aavaa_ 1y ago
Corporations are in principle and practice accountable to those with more money. For all its flaws our democracy is still one person one vote.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >For all its flaws our democracy is still one person one vote. Which seems to just devolve to "the lizards listen to whoever/whatever has money" at the high levels where the number of voters is very high.
  - radlad 1y ago
    Some governments restrict the extent to which "lizards" can use their money to gain air time, etc.
    - actionfromafar 1y ago
      Lizards must not obstructed in any way! Consume! Obey!
- HPsquared 1y ago
  Corporations are still subject to law and ultimately under the control of the government. The current set of rules just gives them a fair amount of freedom to operate.
  - tavavex 1y ago
    This only makes sense in a spherical-cow-in-vacuum world where government and business are somehow barred from communicating with one another. In reality, the "current set of rules" in many countries is a result of companies relentlessly trying to and succeeding in finding ways of influencing government. Political advertisements, campaign funding, lobbying, corruption, underhanded favoritism, countless other methods that are an amazing RoI for any business large enough to engage in it. Large enough corporations are resembling governments more and more in terms of value and power, and they use all of that power to endlessly try to bend the rest of society into serving their profit motive.
- slt2021 1y ago
  [dead]
- sally_glance 1y ago
  It seems to me none of this is as clear cut as it seems. Government entities may hold shares in private companies, companies may act on voter's demands by accepting government grants. For some companies, government contracts are actually a main revenue stream - shareholders can jump up and down, if their supporters are voted out they will falter.
Ar-Curunir 1y ago
The unit of power in stock corporations is dollars, while in democracies it is personhood. In the former, one person can acquire multiple units, while in the latter they cannot. There is an obvious difference.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > while in democracies it is personhood Suffrage*. Not personhood.
tavavex 1y ago
1. Not all companies are publicly traded, and they don't have to be 2. The 'voting' and 'steering' in a corporation is also completely dependent on money. The value of your 'vote' is proportional to how much money you have. This isn't a democracy or some sort of equal system that will converge on serving people, it will converge on serving money. I'm genuinely baffled at how "you get one vote per person" and "your value and voting power is directly tied to your net worth" are in any way comparable. You and I have zero effective power over them, and always will.
- aianus 1y ago
  > The 'voting' and 'steering' in a corporation is also completely dependent on money. It is not, eg. Zuck didn't control Facebook because he was a priori rich, he became rich because he controlled Facebook in a successful way. He gained those shares and that control with his skill and labor (and maybe one symbolic dollar or something).
mschuster91 1y ago
The problem is, when the majority is held by pension funds, ETFs and Blackrock... there isn't much governance in practice, particularly from the low-fee purely passive ETFs. And since government run pension schemes are on their way to the gutter in favor of stonk market private pensions, the share of such dumb passive capital will only grow.
oldchestnts 1y ago
[dead]
TehCorwiz 1y ago
No, a corp is only accountable to their board and the LARGEST shareholder. A single person can control an otherwise publicly traded company. Zuckerberg, for example. And not everyone can afford to spend their earnings owning companies. So what you get with a democracy is that power is spread out by default rather than concentrated in a single element. Default enfranchisement rather than the polar opposite. One at least nods politely at the idea of upward social mobility in passing while the other eschews all pretense as to the status of its party invitation.
XorNot 1y ago
Corporations only have any accountability in so far as the law of the nation-state they're incorporated in grants it. Corporations only exist as a legal construct of other entities. Absent government, they wouldn't be corporations since there'd be no law to create them.

ls612 1y ago

If there is one thing that we learned from the 20th century it is that societies that gave more private control over how resources were used did better than those that had more state control over how resources were used. Perhaps in the 21st century that has changed, but for me that falls under the "extraordinary claims" category with the corresponding evidence requirements.

radlad 1y ago
> If there is one thing that we learned from the 20th century it is that societies that gave more private control over how resources were used did better than those that had more state control over how resources were used. In some metrics (such as GDP), yes. And in other metrics (such as wealth inequality and health care), the answer is less clear-cut.
- ls612 1y ago
  The Soviet bloc did not have better healthcare than the West lol. Soviet life expectancy never crossed above 70 years.
  - radlad 1y ago
    The West encompasses a wide gradient of private vs. state control over resources, and there are states which aren't typically considered Soviet or Western (e.g. Nordic states.)
sigilis 1y ago
The structure of giant corporations today is like those centralized societies that were so inefficient in your example. The mandates to put AI in everything are one example of out of touch leadership throwing money and effort blindly towards things of dubious value. The sycophantic managers, afraid that they will be eliminated for insufficient fervor for the board’s latest fascination, will seize upon anything to prove themselves loyal and useful to those above them. By moving the locus of control, whether it be considered the ceo or shareholders, so far from the actual business and implementing mandates based on whatever the current fancy is and meaningless targets of growth on such a giant scale you get the same sort of excesses. The current system is marked by irrationality and uninformed and ill considered decision making. With smaller organizations and actual business competition they would be held to account by their competitors or just by running out of money before something catastrophic for the greater economy happened.