There is no difference between a command economy and a corporate economy...

[originalpckelly]

aside from the free market competition between the large corporations. That's it. Our corporations are like little planned economies, and the only thing that kept them afloat during the '90s was the information revolution.

Small businesses and self-employed individuals are the only true capitalist structures in our nation, corporations should be considered socialist institutions.

The same problems associated with large government-owned monopolies are almost completely mirrored by corporate monopolies, and aside from the free market competition between these massive planned economies we call corporations, there is little truly market activity.

Our nation is in a rough spot because of this problem. Corporations and government-owned companies both suffer from the problem of having lots of resources at their disposal. When some major inefficiency exists in either of these economic systems, resources that would usually run dry quickly for a self-employed person or a small business, may take months or years to run dry. This reduces the motivation for the company to adapt, or evolve, to changing situations. As the size of an economic system increases, the length of time it takes to evolve increases too. Or as the size of the system increases so to does the "latency of self-regulation" as I like to call it.

This is, by the way, is an argument against globalism, only instead of individual companies in a given economy, it is the economies of various nations which experience an increase in their respective "latency of self-regulation." The problem of resource exhaustion becomes severe when resources from other economies can be run through to support the inefficiency in another economy. This is what's happened in our nation, both publicly and privately held debt has experienced a large increase in foreign financing. By borrowing from overseas, we've been driving ourselves off the cliff financially.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

1. Is this what you mean?

Let's look at the restaurant industry as an example. If you are an independent owner, your goal is to pay all expenses (labor, food, utilities, rent, taxes, etc.) and have enough left over to continue running the business and to support yourself. If the business does not take in enough money to meet these goals then the business will have to close.

But that is not the case with a corporate chain. They have additional sources of revenue besides selling food to people - they sell stock in their business. This additional source of revenue allows them to build corporate centers and fund an entire chain of bureacracy and middle and upper management - people who will seldom set foot in an actual restaurant. They will also be paid huge salaries and will get big bonuses and stock options. Now, if you have ever owned a restaurant - you will understand that there is no way with the actual cost of food and labor, that this structure could have much if anything to do with the selling of food but has everything to do with the selling of the stock. To me, they are selling an impossible premise - that this company will "make money" from the sale of food. Not possible. No, but they will make money from the sale of stock. If they are smart, they will take some of this money and invest it themselves and hope that that is one way they will make actual money and not illusory money.

I just used restaurants as an example (and I'm sure that somewhere there is some well-run chain that has figured out some formula and is tightly run and managed and that makes real money.) But I think this is what you are getting at in saying that large resources inherently cause large inefficiencies.

[originalpckelly]

2. It's not just that, think of profits from many sources and credit.

In a way you've hit upon something I'd never considered! :P

What I'm talking about is the ability of a corporation to access credit far easier than a small business. That and the ability of profitable locations to support unprofitable locations.

The other angle of this is that a corporation, if it has cash on hand, is likely to have tons of cash to burn through before it runs out of options and must change. Its resource pool is much larger.

Governments and companies owned by them are much the same way too.

Do you see what I mean?

[TahitiNut]

3. Any business that's "too big to (be allowed to) fail" is on corporate welfare ...

... and should be broken up like a cancerous tumor on the body politic. As I've said before, we'd be well-served if we merely outlawed corporate ownership of other corporations. If, additionally, we prohibited corporations from operating beyond the boundaries of the sovereign territory of the government (state or federal) under which they're incorporated then we'd keep the monsters small enough to exterminate when needed. That does not mean that the goods produced could not be traded beyond those boundaries, but it means that the employees, plant, and equipment could not be 'off-shored' without an 'arm's-length' transaction. (Currently, there are no federally incorporated businesses; they're all incorporated in a state.) For many decades, various other countries have imposed foreign ownership limits, usually 49%, on corporations incorporated within their boundaries. Global corporatists have detested this ... since such countries have also had strong labor protections. It's long past time for the U.S. to do the same.

IMHO, of course. YMMV. :dunce:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. Check this out.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3606790&mesg_id=3606790