From: Reason (reason@exratio.com)
Date: Tue Mar 25 2003 - 03:18:06 MST
---> Emlyn O'regan
> > The point at which the largest companies become a governement
> > is the point
> > at which they use force and violent coercion to eliminate
> > competitors and
> > maintain a monopoly.
> >
> > Reason
> > http://www.exratio.com/
>
> Well, yes, and I took your point that you have to accept an
> amount of that.
> The problem is, that the temptation for a monopoly (PPF /
> insurance provider
> / what have you) is going to be very, very large. Who, after all, can stop
> them? No one at all, by definition almost. Is there any other action, once
> they are of that size, that would continue to increase
> shareholder profits?
This is actually a very interesting question: how do you check power except
by use of greater power? Of course, invoking a greater power in the same
mould defeats the object -- we end up back in the tyranny of slavery.
The best I can come up with is the following:
a) assume that any significant alliance of providers can overcome the
largest provider (militarily or force them out of business)
b) providers are in anything goes free market competition (of course,
"anything goes" means anything that doesn't alienate your customer base)
c) multiple providers compete in all geographical regions
d) forms of coercion and theft are about the only things that are against
the law; corporate entities do not shield people from direct accountability
for their actions
e) assume a rich layer of service provider brands and specialist
subcontractors: subcontractors are not going to accept exclusive business
relationships, nor are they going to stay in relationships that destroy
their other business
f) assume a healthy investigative press and people thinking much the way
that people do now about businesses
Under these circumstances, any provider that starts acting like a government
is going to lose customers, business partners and public support pretty
quickly. All the competitors will be sticking the knife in just as fast as
they can to increase their revenue.
Now if people within a provider -- include C-levels -- coerce or steal, then
they will be open to whatever legal system is in place (say a distributed
system of dispute resolution run by these same competing providers).
So in short, business checks and balances: the tyranny of the customer, the
constant vigilance of competitors, competition, wide and easy access to
information.
Reason
http://www.exratio.com/
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