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Alibaba breaks itself up in six

economist.com

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Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#51

Post by mikea1 »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #32
jeron wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they mean the end of China’s crackdown wrt alibaba

Just checking my understanding: They prefer individual businesses not to get to big, monopolistic or dominant across multiple sectors, as this would give the business undue influence over politics? And of course they're operating on the idea that the political sphere governs the market and not that the biggest businesses should be the most powerful lobbiests. So this is an end to it because it effectively neuters the…

> this would give the business undue influence over politics?

It's about power. From the article:

> Communist authorities dislike the idea of anything, let alone a large private business, outshining the party. And the country’s leaders bristled at the high profile of Alibaba’s founder, Jack Ma, an icon of Chinese enterprise who every now and again dared question their decisions.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#52

Post by Spivak »

wincy wrote: post #20
fumblebee wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: why was this downvoted? To me it seems totally reasonable that: > The U.S. should continue investigating splitting up Alphabet, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft.

I disagree, and think it would be harmful. I think we’d be better off splitting up the US government into smaller pieces but everyone loses their mind when I suggest it.

Because without also limiting the size and power of private entities you're just arguing for corporatism with extra steps.

If you force government to be smaller and less powerful than corporations then corporations become government.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#53

Post by dmonitor »

jihiggins wrote: post #42
poszlem wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came across a comment that resonated with me and seems relevant in this context, so I saved it. It says: "The arc of communism is long and it leans towards oppressing the fuck out of people. It’s a tendency of all governmental systems. Communism rests most of its power in the hands of government without a moneyed elite to oppose them, so it tends to move to authoritarianism faster and with less resistance."

Maybe from the perspective of the moneyed elite, but in what universe is China breaking up a monopoly an indicator of "authoritarianism"

I’d love to hear Jack Ma’s opinion on it

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#54

Post by eunos »

maxwell wrote: post #7

Great move. This will increase local competition and wages, diversify ideas and design, and make shareholders more money than as a single entity. As with Standard Oil and AT&T. The U.S. should continue investigating splitting up Alphabet, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft.

Ironically isnt that this move just make Alibaba governance just follow Alphabet model?

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#55

Post by re-thc »

duxup wrote: post #22
endisneigh wrote: post #8

It's interesting to contrast China's approach of not allowing business to operate within the plane of power in which the government does, vs. the United States, which has companies whose power is certainly on the level of many state governments.

To me the complicating factor is “why”. I’m not sure why China as a government makes the calls it does. It’s not clear to me that those aren’t just as self serving as say a big company in the us operating freely and so on.

China can't print money and go in infinite debt mode like the US does?

The government needs to recover from COVID.

Perspective:

As leader the in control, I see there's a company that has the largest payment network in the country. Well that can't happen. I need a slice of it. So let's "regulate" it.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#56

Post by true_religion »

quonn wrote: post #14
maxwell wrote: post #7

Great move. This will increase local competition and wages, diversify ideas and design, and make shareholders more money than as a single entity. As with Standard Oil and AT&T. The U.S. should continue investigating splitting up Alphabet, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft.

How would you split Apple? How would you split Meta (would you start charging for WhatsApp)?

WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and Oculus all used to be separate companies. They can easily become so again.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#57

Post by listenallyall »

nindalf wrote: post #36
quonn wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't make sense to split Apple into hardware and software since the integration and simplicity that comes from it is the very thing that makes Apple unique.

You asked for ideas. You never specified that they should be workable or logical.

Apple licensed it's MacOS back in the mid-90s to third-party hardware manufacturers. If it was forced to by the government, I imagine it could do so again.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#59

Post by fnovd »

pfisherman wrote: post #38
poszlem wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came across a comment that resonated with me and seems relevant in this context, so I saved it. It says: "The arc of communism is long and it leans towards oppressing the fuck out of people. It’s a tendency of all governmental systems. Communism rests most of its power in the hands of government without a moneyed elite to oppose them, so it tends to move to authoritarianism faster and with less resistance."

Please excuse my naïveté here, but communism is an economic system and not a form of government, no? My understanding is that economics and governance are largely - though not completely - orthogonal.

Marxist theory says that the separation between economic and state power is illusory at best and intentionally deceptive at worst. So a communist isn't going to think it possible to separate economic and state power, whereas that concept of that separation of powers is a foundational component of modern liberalism. It's why the two camps have a such a hard time talking to each other; they really don't see things the same way.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#60

Post by AbrahamParangi »

voisin wrote: post #31
SilverBirch wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an expert on this, but from what I gather this all leads back to a power struggle between Jack Ma and Xi Jinping. Ma was ready to go public with AliPay and in the build up to it made a speech that criticised the government regulation as being out of date. This was viewed as a challenge to the governments power. Over the next few months the government moved to tighten regulations on companies like AliPay and d…

> So people are hoping that now the worst of it is done What is the basis of this hope?

I think on some level people implicitly believe that the Chinese govt will choose prosperity over power because that's what they imagine they would do. I suspect that will never happen.
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