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Alibaba breaks itself up in six

economist.com

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Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#91

Post by sva_ »

poszlem wrote: post #23
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.

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."

> without a moneyed elite

Contrast that with

> China’s parliament has about 100 billionaires

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/02/chinas-parliament-has-about-...

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#92

Post by toyg »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #68
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to go public with AliPay and in the build up to it made a speech that criticised the government regulation as being out of date.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…

Also, one of Ma’s last public appearances was at an American conference, maybe TechCrunch but I’m not sure, where he said in an on stage interview something to the effect of, “I’m not afraid of the CCP”, in relation to recent revelations he was a CCP member. Then he got disappeared shortly after. He was really clueless about what kind of org he was dealing with.

One doesn't need to be clueless in order to lose a power struggle. He might have been betrayed, he might have overestimated the resources he could fully count on, he might have simply been backing a faction in the party that ended up losing. Xi Jinping went as far as kicking out of the public congress a previous president, which was unprecedented; who knows what else he's capable of.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#93

Post by drstewart »

bioemerl wrote: post #21
quonn wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Apple into hardware and software. Microsoft into OS and other software and cloud. Amazon into cloud and web store(s). Google into ads and web software that serves ads.

This just feels like completely arbitrary divisions based on what sounds good as opposed to any guiding logic around defining a monopoly and breaking it down along systemic lines. Populism, basically.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#94

Post by mongol »

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.

I don't see how they can be kept separate. Governance is to a large degree the creation of policies for managing of resources, and managing resources is what economics is about.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#96

Post by FpUser »

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.

The US government is already split. You want country ran by companies? As much as I do not like politicians I think companies running the country would do much worse.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#97

Post by pmoriarty »

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.

There's no bright, clear separation between governments and corporations in America.

Corporate execs regularly get jobs in government, and often wind up "regulating" the very industries/companies they came from. It's also an open secret in Washington that when politicians retire they often get cushy, high paying jobs in the very companies they regulated or provided government contracts to.

It's a revolving door between corporations and governments, and it's misleading to think the one is truly separate from the other.

A better model is to look at the corporate-government interaction as competing elites vying with one another for money, power, and influence, and just as often collaborating with each other on shared interests.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#98

Post by thrdbndndn »

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"

Because the way it breaks up, it doesn't feel like it is to fight against monopoly, more like the gov not wanting a business empire that becomes too influential.

Since it breaks down by divisions, so for example taobao would still be the top e-commerce competitor. Not to mention, despite being huge, I can't say Alibaba has monopoly in any of their services.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#99

Post by tpm »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #60
voisin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

And I suspect you are right as long as current leaders wield the power. Periodical purges in all ranks of power and society are a time-tested feature of communist regimes. Without them the party cadres grow stale and lose their revolutional vigor. I can imagine it's a bit similar to how the free market works, with companies going bankrupt or taken over all the time, only there it's the changing conditions and the 'invisible hand of the market', while in communist dictatorships it's always intentional and directed (and way more brutal), because the rigid system does not self-regulate, at least not the way the leaders would like.

Re: Alibaba breaks itself up in six

#100

Post by crop_rotation »

The media and HN seem to be seeing this as a AT&T style breakup, which is not. It is starting with an Alphabet style restructuring, which sounds big in theory but nothing big might happen in practice. The biggest unit (Taobao/Tmall) will be fully owned by Alibaba and would not seek any external investment (Taobao/Tmall is responsible for >70% of their profits). The new Unit CEOs were not even invited to speak at the announcement. Even if all the new Units sell 10-20% stock to the market, would it really change too many things? It will all depend on how the CCP wants the breakup to play out.
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