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UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism”

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11–20 of 73 posts

Re: UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism”

#11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except if it's Sears, RCA, IBM, Kodak, etc.

Do you think Amazon, Facebook or Google won’t buy out their would-be destroyers, regulators willing? And I don’t see any signs of unwilling regulators lately.

Yahoo didn't when they had the chance. I mean I'm sure they'd love to if they can but will they see it coming early enough?

Re: UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism”

#12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except if it's Sears, RCA, IBM, Kodak, etc.

Do you think Amazon, Facebook or Google won’t buy out their would-be destroyers, regulators willing? And I don’t see any signs of unwilling regulators lately.

When Facebook was growing there was a fear on Google that Facebook would lead to Google's irrelevance. Google+ was a very clear response to that. Still, Google couldn't buy Facebook and couldn't kill it.

Microsoft couldn't kill/buy Google, Walmart can't kill/buy Amazon. Microsoft and Walmart are still big, but not that powerful anymore.

So while i think they can buy their would be destroyers, that is actually very hard, because they mostly only realize that too late, or are stopped by something else (Microsoft did buy shares of Facebook before Google).

Re: UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism”

#13
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a strong underlying point to this though, pretty much predicted by RMS and it so far seems to be going in that direction. The last revision of the GPL tried to address some of the IP related consequences but there is only so much that can be done from that angle. Large piles tend to get larger, that's the major issue.

Except if it's Sears, RCA, IBM, Kodak, etc.

Yes, but patent portfolios are a sought after asset in liquidations or acquisitions of failing giants.

Re: UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism”

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think Amazon, Facebook or Google won’t buy out their would-be destroyers, regulators willing? And I don’t see any signs of unwilling regulators lately.

When Facebook was growing there was a fear on Google that Facebook would lead to Google's irrelevance. Google+ was a very clear response to that. Still, Google couldn't buy Facebook and couldn't kill it. Microsoft couldn't kill/buy Google, Walmart can't kill/buy Amazon. Microsoft and Walmart are still big, but not that powerful anymore. So while i think they can buy their would be destroyers, that is actually very ha…

And IBM didn't get to buy MS.

Where is Commodore now? DEC? SGI? Intergraph?

From 1955 to 2016 only 12% of firms remain in the Fortune 500. It's not clear that this sort of churn isn't still happening:

http://www.aei.org/publication/fortune-500-firms-1955-v-2016...

However, it's also worth noting that no churn would take a long time to show up.

Re: UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism”

#17
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a strong underlying point to this though, pretty much predicted by RMS and it so far seems to be going in that direction. The last revision of the GPL tried to address some of the IP related consequences but there is only so much that can be done from that angle. Large piles tend to get larger, that's the major issue.

Except if it's Sears, RCA, IBM, Kodak, etc.

What you see with the collapse of these companies is more concentration of market power, not less.

Re: UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism”

#18
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except if it's Sears, RCA, IBM, Kodak, etc.

All of which were blatantly mismanaged. More importantly, it's not as though the collapse of these piles suddenly led to a redistribution of the wealth they amassed...

When the company declines, the "amassed wealth" evaporates, because the value of the company as a company disappears. There isn't any wealth to redistribute, and the holders of that wealth were diminished along with it.

Re: UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism”

#19
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except if it's Sears, RCA, IBM, Kodak, etc.

All of which were blatantly mismanaged. More importantly, it's not as though the collapse of these piles suddenly led to a redistribution of the wealth they amassed...

> All of which were blatantly mismanaged

It's easy to be a monday morning quarterback about management. Even so, no company is immune from blatant mismanagement. It's not a no-brainer to effectively manage a large corporation, not remotely.

For an example, look at Apple in the 1990s. A series of CEOs were all unable to get the company moving again, until Jobs was asked to return. (And those CEOs were all experienced and well-educated businessmen.)

Re: UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism”

#20

Maybe . . . It's not intellectual property that keeps internet companies at the top of the pile, for the most part, unless we are counting trade secrets and domain names as intellectual property (and they are in a sense, but not the sense that requires a government to create an artificial market for them).

All markets are "artificial". Intellectual property is no different to other forms of property in this regard. Both require a government to enforce the laws that create them.
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