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Meta-Companies

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iamnotaparakeet
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12 Nov 2010, 4:06 pm

Everyone knows about megacorporations and how monopolies are generally a bad thing for everyone except the monopoly itself, but what about a situation in which one company has possession of all the land of which all the other companies operate, has the ability to charge whatever fees they want to, owns the land on which all the people live and claims ownership of their very lives. Would you voluntarily choose to work for such a meta-company?

This analogy is, as all analogies are, imperfect. However, would not governments in general be such meta-companies?



waltur
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12 Nov 2010, 4:08 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Everyone knows about megacorporations and how monopolies are generally a bad thing for everyone except the monopoly itself, but what about a situation in which one company has possession of all the land of which all the other companies operate, has the ability to charge whatever fees they want to, owns the land on which all the people live and claims ownership of their very lives. Would you voluntarily choose to work for such a meta-company?

This analogy is, as all analogies are, imperfect. However, would not governments in general be such meta-companies?


governments do qualify as such.


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12 Nov 2010, 4:41 pm

Quote:
Would you voluntarily choose to work for such a meta-company?

If someone is hungry: he want a snack... there would be enough people working, that any voluntary refusal would only be symbolic.

So if I would not starve or had a family to support or had to pay some kind of mortgage every month, I would voluntarily choose not to work for such company.

But if I was leading such a company, I would make sure the workforce supply is not a problem.

Quote:
governments do qualify as such.

Depends, there are governments who are there to protect private property, lots of them actually.


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ruveyn
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12 Nov 2010, 4:43 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Everyone knows about megacorporations and how monopolies are generally a bad thing for everyone except the monopoly itself, but what about a situation in which one company has possession of all the land of which all the other companies operate, has the ability to charge whatever fees they want to, owns the land on which all the people live and claims ownership of their very lives. Would you voluntarily choose to work for such a meta-company?

This analogy is, as all analogies are, imperfect. However, would not governments in general be such meta-companies?


You are talking about power without accountability. That fits most governments at large today.

ruveyn



iamnotaparakeet
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12 Nov 2010, 4:54 pm

ruveyn wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Everyone knows about megacorporations and how monopolies are generally a bad thing for everyone except the monopoly itself, but what about a situation in which one company has possession of all the land of which all the other companies operate, has the ability to charge whatever fees they want to, owns the land on which all the people live and claims ownership of their very lives. Would you voluntarily choose to work for such a meta-company?

This analogy is, as all analogies are, imperfect. However, would not governments in general be such meta-companies?


You are talking about power without accountability. That fits most governments at large today.

ruveyn


Governments do display a fair bit of power without accountability, but even worse is the situation when a government is run by financially incompetent people with elitist attitudes whose only qualifications to be elected are their skills in rhetoric.



ruveyn
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12 Nov 2010, 4:58 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

Governments do display a fair bit of power without accountability, but even worse is the situation when a government is run by financially incompetent people with elitist attitudes whose only qualifications to be elected are their skills in rhetoric.


Government by competent thinkers is a theoretical possibility.. Plato conjured with the idea in his famous dialog -The Republic-. The fact of the matter is that governments tend to be run by Power Trippers who are no famous for either their wisdom or intelligence. Every so often a leader like Marcus Aurelius emerges but that is a rare happening.

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iamnotaparakeet
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12 Nov 2010, 5:08 pm

ruveyn wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:

Governments do display a fair bit of power without accountability, but even worse is the situation when a government is run by financially incompetent people with elitist attitudes whose only qualifications to be elected are their skills in rhetoric.


Government by competent thinkers is a theoretical possibility.. Plato conjured with the idea in his famous dialog -The Republic-. The fact of the matter is that governments tend to be run by Power Trippers who are no famous for either their wisdom or intelligence. Every so often a leader like Marcus Aurelius emerges but that is a rare happening.

ruveyn


Perhaps candidates for national leadership ought to be determined on the basis of intellectual criteria prior to being placed on a public ballot.



ruveyn
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12 Nov 2010, 5:09 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

Perhaps candidates for national leadership ought to be determined on the basis of intellectual criteria prior to being placed on a public ballot.


And who would be virtuous enough to administer the test?

Sed qui custodiet ad ipso custodii. Who shall guard the guardians and who shall watch the watchers?

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iamnotaparakeet
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12 Nov 2010, 5:15 pm

ruveyn wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:

Perhaps candidates for national leadership ought to be determined on the basis of intellectual criteria prior to being placed on a public ballot.


And who would be virtuous enough to administer the test?

Sed qui custodiet ad ipso custodii. Who shall guard the guardians and who shall watch the watchers?

ruveyn


I suppose, "It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes."



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12 Nov 2010, 5:31 pm

Well, if that mega corporation also had an obligation to provide security and a good environment for all the smaller corporations it controls, and there were hundreds of other such mega corporations eager to accept the smaller corporations in case they are not happy with the decisions of the big one and also the "smaller corporations" didn't have their own people in the list of top executives in the mega corporation ...


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