I think, although I’m not sure, that the problem is with vertical integration.
Good answer, lol.
That’s sorta my point. The supposed argument, which everyone seems to be taking for granted, is very non-specific. I can think of a lot of ways to define a big firm.
-
of Customers
- Size of market x Market share
- Capitalization
- Geographic reach
- Revenue
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of Employees
- Legal Status
And that’s just the beginning of the criteria.
I know several people who have revenues over 6 figures a month, living at home with their folks, and are incorporated. These are also one man operations, and they have a crap ton of capital. Real world examples like this blow the rhetoric out of the water.
That’s interesting. So it may be the business model not the legal structure. This is what I mean. One can make all of the arguments they want, as long as they are imprecise.
I’d be very curious to know what Rod Long’s definition is of these oppressive businesses.
I think Roderick Long is misplacing his attacks. Or at least being inconsistant. If he’s going to attack bis buisness for accepting government help then he should attack poor at least. The difference is, if you ask me, nobody sits there thinking about the poor capitalists who need more money, but many people dispair at the plight of the poor proletariat. In any case big buisness makes up a very small percentage of the population, which isn’t the case for the poor.
But that’s another topic. Oppressive buisness is a silly idea anyway, buisness can provide products and that’s about it. He’s ignoring the problem, which is the government. Attacking the corporate structure is an even sillier idea. Regarding which I need to read Kinsella.
I agree GS.
A lot of this reads like populist socialist rhetoric, and not libertarian analysis, which is what it is passed off as.
The size of the firm is irrelevant. But in order to demonize business and deify the proletariat, business and capitalists needs to be laid low. That sort of fanaticism is anti-intellectual. I think more libertarians need to start businesses, even if they become self-employed. See the action from the other side.
I think re-examining corporate structure is never a bad thing; I personally like the idea of Parecon buisnesses being a possible option in the free-market (I think it would be an apt option for someone starting out or for intentionally small buisnesses, such as say, a webcomic with a shop online & amatuer printing & product abilities).
Exactly. Firms will be whatever size the market demands. If they’re too big and they can charge above some silly notion of a “competative price” people can boycott the firm.
These people act is if there’s something inherently good about small firms. Long’s comment about workers being pushed around is just about one of the silliest things I’ve ever heard from a libertarian. Nobody gives anybody a job out of kindness. Both parties gain from it and that’s why it goes ahead.
You keep coming up with these words about which I am clueless. What exactly is a Parecon buisness and what is a Craigslist?
I don’t. The larger the firm, the less efficient it becomes. It’s comparative, not qualitative.
In which case one would expect a libertarian society to be include one man steel factories, no?
That doesn’t fly either. It undoes the whole notion of the division of labour.
I think the issue, as GS pointed out, was the structure, not the size.
Yes. Wait, no - that’s actually not what I said at all.
The logical conclusion of this being: one man firms.
Only if you think that individuals cooperating toward a common economic goal necessarily constitutes a firm.
Parecon = Participatory Economics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parecon). I think it would be an interesting option, personally, but I don’t advocate it as a uniform or a popular model.
Craigslist = http://www.craigslist.org/about/
What do you propose then?
Billions of individual, independent contractors who may or may not be contracted toward cooperative labor with other people at any given time. Most likely and most times, they will be. But I do not consider such an arrangement to be a firm.
I’m not trying to be argumentative here, but then how do you define a firm? I mean a company merely hires independent contractors from the labour pool, and likewise independent contractors seek jobs with firms. It’s not exactly an involuntary process.
I have no problem calling a voluntary association of contractors to be a company, because that’s what it is. But a firm is a legal (and macroeconomic) definition referring to a business entity. It’s really not a question of how big a firm would be, but whether or not they would even exist in a free market. I personally think not.
The associations of individuals which may be called a “company” may become very large, but as I have been saying, once they become very large they become economically immobile and inefficient, and will naturally break up into smaller, more efficient, and more specialized units. This last is necessary to preserve the division of labor - far from undermining it.
No? When it begins experiencing diseconomies of scale (i.e. the calculation problem), then of course you’re right. But up to a certain point firms enjoy gains in efficiency from size. The purpose of the firm is to overcome transaction costs in the market. A good way to identify big business I guess is firms that have grown to the point where they should’ve collapsed absent the state.