"When it comes time to hang the capitalists, they will vie with each other for the rope contract".
Roughly speaking one can view the difference between China and the U.S. as follows. In China corporations serve CCCP interests and in the U.S. government serves corporate (highest bidder) interests.
I should not have said “other countries” in my original post. There are, currently, no other countries than China and the U.S. in terms of scale and influence.
One might perhaps reasonably compare the EU, which I would suggest is somewhere between the US and China on the where the control lies.
Huh? In the US large corporations commonly write the laws that get passed. They literally do dictate policy.
Having said that, someone at Intel, owners or managers, are way off track here and in need of severe consequences. They picked the wrong side.
And a court isn't going to second-guess the management if they judge the cost savings of using slave labour don't outweigh the potential for reputational damage.
As such, management are free to act either way.
I think there should be far more shareholder involvement in general. We are far too acquiescent as a group.
If you polled every direct and indirect INTC holder (you may be one, unknowingly) about slavery and concentration camps, you’d walk away with a near 100% mandate for taking all measures against it.
There's such a thing as activist investors, and they seem to be gaining influence lately. From what I read in the newspaper, they're behind a lot of the changes that are starting to happen at certain multi-national oil companies.
I strongly believe we need more voter participation here.
It's not a one-way street.
Management can do things, and if the shareholders don't like it, they can sell their shares in protest.
Happens all the time.
A company is a group of people coming together for a purpose. Management can't destory the group in pursuit of their own values. A ship's captain can't risk the ship because of their own values.
They haven't even asked what the shareholders want. They don't think they need to, because they believe that everyone will naturally share their belief that money is their highest priority.
They have a duty to act in the best interest of the shareholder. Generally that means not having reduced revenue. This is what most people accept. If shareholders want them to do something different they can let them know.
I think this is the fundamental disagreement we have, and it's probably too big of a conversation for a comment thread. In my philosophy of determining "best interest", revenue is an important consideration, but not the only one and not the most important one. There is certainly no legal duty to increase revenue or stock price or anything like that.
Under which law? Plenty of corporate boards do things their shareholders don't like every day.
Good question, who are Intel shareholders?
https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/intc/instituti...
Generally these people barely know they're shareholders, they receive none of the paperwork needed to vote at the AGM, they have a slice several orders of magnitude too small to exert any influence, and they have no way of identifying or contacting other shareholders to take any sort of coordinated action.
Anyone who expects X to be done by shareholders is going to be disappointed.
It's the general problem of public ownership of means of production.
Public companies don't work. Stock market provides heck a lot of wrong incentives.
Fun in theory but too bad only Americans tolerate those PE multiples. So, look out below!
If no one wants to do that then what is all these kvetch about "capitalism" and "greed" corrupting companies and our values when it is the people who do not care. Certainly not enough to pay up for the shares.
in my case I was waiting for disgruntled shareholders to sell because an aggregate stance was not taken by management or other shareholders, and then when sold it goes to people more or less apathetic.
in your case you want people to buy the shares at any price but likely a premium, in order to exercise a goal, which I frankly think is absurd.
so guess the market has priced everything in well enough, as an aggregate opinion on its own.
If the American consumers of Intel chips -- the people and government actors -- are unhappy with Intel's stance then they can also not buy their chips. This is basically what the Chinese are doing (without owning shares). Now granted the Chinese people have little say in it but the government is ostencibly acting on their behalf. Even if China was a democractic country and the CCP could not ban Intel outright then the government or the people could say that they would not buy Intel chips.
So if Americans did the same to uphold their own belifes then Intel would suffer here and that would reduce the stock price, which would make it easier for people who want to take them to take the progressive position to buy the stock and force them to reverse their position.
The key take away is that there is no scenario in which both sides actuall care about the issue and Intel stock doesn't drop.
Since it doesn't it means that Americans do not care about it as much as the Chinese, or do not know how to express their displeasure :)
If A cares enough about an issue and is willing to deal with the consequences and B does not then A wins and B loses.
Everyons is willing to commit something for a cause they care about. It could be as little as taking time to convince others by writing an article or a tweet, or as much as being able to commit violence for it and deal with the consequences.
One aspect of life, from negotiations to geopolitics to convince your opponent that A) you would be willing to pay a higher price than they are for your position B) you CAN pay that price.
In case of Intel v China, CCP has something to lose by banning Intel but they've demonstrated or at least convinced them and most other companies that they're willing to pay that price and CAN pay it (by the virtue of being the CCP and having absolute authority). A nation with less resources may not be able to convince a mega corp in order to get concessions.
So in this case if Americans care more about this issue they have to convince the Chinese that they're willing AND able to pay a higher price than they are.
Too early to conclude this. These tensions present not only a reputational risk for Intel, but financial ones as well, particularly if tensions escalate. Managers might not care, but there is precedence for shareholders taking a longer view [1].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/business/exxon-mobil-engi...
Management absolutely has a say.
I don't realize how vain the America is (I assume). Losing advantage in aero and semiconductor tech means destruction of the world? really?.
> In the autumn of 1905 he founded, together with Krassin, the newspaper New Life; the necessary money being given by millionaires, who thereby helped weave the rope from which many of them should hang later on.
Its pretty clear what happened, Intel doesn't have an aggregate stance on anything, US legal saw the new US federal law regarding Xinjiang and wanted it included in US securities regulatory risk statements and also needed that in circulars. That happened, then reality set in that there are consequences - something lawmakers are shielded from - and at that point Intel took a look at the circumstance holistically and reworded it.
Companies are going to have to hire geopolitical experts to play cross cultural word games now that they are being saddled with it the consequences.
Intel is doing the exact same thing to help Xinjiang as the government which is absolutely nothing. Yet somehow anti-capitalists will only focus on the former. Governments do tend to virtue signal more, but that's because they don't face any negative repercussions for doing so.
Maybe you're just suggesting capitalism isn't capable of "solving" the wrongdoings of communism? If so I would agree. A society that accepts the evils of communism is a difficult thing to solve externally.
And they are big enough to be able to influence other big countries and foreign corporations to the point that they are now setting directions of where things are going.
Case and point Holywood and self censorship in movies to pander to chinese market
They are not saying comunism is good or bad, just stating reality of what is happening
This is a very direct example of a communist government controlling the messaging of a company, which is antithetical to capitalism.
As I understand it, this is happening because Chinese corporations are coerced by the communist regime such that Intel would lose business if they didn't follow the rules coming thru their Chinese partner corporations. Intel is still very much capable of freely choosing to obey those demands or not, which makes them capitalists, but the Chinese corporations being coerced into doing PR for the CCP is not capitalism.
China is interesting in that they seem to take a more data-orientated decision making process when it comes to determining areas where free-market like behaviors would increase efficiency while keeping strategic capabilities under public funding (despite the efficiency losses).
I think most other governments manage this balance poorly, in recent decades mostly tending to over-privatize things like utilities and infrastructure.
If China manages to continue on it's path of market regulation and paying attention to health of competition etc (it's recent work on giving the SAMR teeth) they are going to be in a very strong position in the coming decades while others play catchup after the privatisation overcorrection.
People seem to forget that free markets -require- strong regulation. The tending towards deregulation in US markets has lead to a serious degradation of market competitiveness and thus freedom.
My hope is the success of China will drive Western economies to do better so that we can say that democracy is at least as good as autocracy but preferably better. But to do that we need to stop throwing stones from glass houses and actually get down to the business of matching them.
That's exactly what bothers me about our western democracies, I fail to see why critical things like education, medicine, food and infrastructure(including internet-access) should be privatized. These things should belong to the people. Private companies can feel free to produce and sell other things, but they should, in my opinion, keep their hands from certain things.
> they are going to be in a very strong position in the coming decades
No doubt. What I currently wonder, is how afraid of this I should be. I'm not from the US so I don't really get emotional when thinking about the US getting weaker, compared to China. And although the US do things I find to be absolutely not okay, China seems even less compatible with my values.
> People seem to forget that free markets -require- strong regulation
Yes!
> But to do that we need to stop throwing stones from glass houses and actually get down to the business of matching them.
Totally. All I hear currently are politicians and other high-profile people constantly whining about China, while simultaneously manufacturing everything over there and profiting from their cheap labour. That's also something I find comical about the US - Publicy they denounce China, are constantly fighting in a trade war with each other. But so many things are then imported from China, just think about what Silicon Valley would do if China decides to keep their resources for themselves, or to just block the US.
Of course China would probably also have troubes, if the US would then in turn block them. But all I am trying to say is, that I hate the hypocrisy of this so called trade-war.
And now, to try to prove that I am not a shill for either side,
Tiananmen Square was a tragedy, what's happening with Hong Kong and Taiwan is a bit depressing, Xi Jinping and Winnie Pooh look very similar and what they do to Uyghurs is evil.
The US should face more consequences for their oil-wars which they label as "bringing freedom and democracy", patriot act and guantanamo bay are sickening, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange should be freed and given awards, your political "two-party" system is very outdated and overall the US has a really over-blown ego for all the issues it has. Healthcare, social security, wealth-gaps etc.
Maybe this was a bit unnecessary, but I notice that you can't say anything not 100% Anti-China without raising suspicion of being a state-sponsored troll or whatever. Maybe I could be labeled as a russian troll, but believe me, I could rant about their government as well.
Before I forget, last disclaimer: I am mostly criticizing these countries governments and elites, I have 0 issues with ordinary american or chinese citizens as a whole.
Just because state officials aren't directly managing day to day operations does not mean that company isn't owned by the state, because in China, that company is always owned by the state.
What is this nuance you seem to be referencing but not explaining?
You can believe in whatever you like, it doesn't change the reality and facts.
Its not my opinion, china is a capitalist country run by communist (with Xi totalitarian) government.
The companies adhere to market laws/regulations and operate like any other capitalist western corporations.
Of note is the fact that as corporation gets to certain size their board must hire certain number of party official who will oversee the business operations.
Those people ensure the company is heading in the broad direction set by the party. If they dont, party will bring out the knives and it doesnt matter if you are jack ma or not.