Hacker News Reader

Comment by A_D_E_P_T | Hacker News Reader

> "Instead of better-regulated companies, why shouldn’t the solution be no more companies?"

This is a very weird, even quite childish, criticism.

There's an outside chance that some of the stuff Doctorow wants can be implemented. There's literally zero chance that companies in general are abolished (in favor of what, exactly?) just because a few megacorps, given perverse incentives, have become bad actors.

Besides, large firms are, effectively, the most unkillable human-derived things that exist. If you "abolish" them in one place, they'll nevertheless still exist in another, or they'll simply pick up move somewhere else, like high-net-worth individuals. "Headquarters" are often merely a formality.

View on HN

> There's literally zero chance that companies in general are abolished (in favor of what, exactly?)

You have extremely overstated the author's position. He doesn't say anything about abolishing companies in general, and for the handful of companies that he suggests could be abolished, he says very clearly in favor of what.

He talks about possibly having public broadband providers instead of just (for example) Comcast, says there could possibly be "a nationalized search engine to compete with Google," and says we "could even have public alternatives to social media networks like Facebook and Twitter."

That's it. That's the sum total of the alternative he's proposing. Whatever you think of the merits or likelihood of that alternative, the idea is hardly a "childish" fantasy.

Companies provide a legal framework for co-operative ventures between people. Companies are people. They are a legal construct that serves a useful purpose in society. They are not inherently evil. People who believe they are evil have been bleating about it for over a century and had multiple opportunities and the support of revolutions and empires to find an alternative and have failed every time.

Companies exist within a society and it is up to that society to engage politically for the common good or the bad companies will bribe law makers, buy votes and evade taxes and regulations. People never want to recognize their own culpability. They hate company practices but keep purchasing from them. They hate politicians but refuse to vote for alternatives.

Corporations are not inherently evil, but there are evil companies.

If you work for an evil company, you're complicit. Even if you're working on a weird corner of open source esoterica.

Meta delenda est.

Cultures develop within companies like any other organization. As those cultures develop they tend to push the decent people out and promote more of the same. Some companies are clearly abhorrent. My argument is that its a cultural issue unrelated to the legal framework. You can find similar weirdness in any group of people. Those bad companies exist due to a lack of regulation and transparency. Unfortunately just as companies can amplify the potential of groups of people to do productive things they can shield bad people and become hostile to democracy.

If they are attacking us we need to learn to push back. I don't understand why people go from being walked on to wanting to burn stuff down. There is a really good middle ground and too many people have abandoned it.

A company might discover that the most profitable thing is to destroy the social fabric to make money. We call this "engagement". In practice, it's the most controversial opinions that generate clicks. The social media company realizes the controversial opinions generate the most clicks. Generating discord in the populace creates more click -- and therefore more profit.

If you work social media company, often you're going to make a literal shit ton of coin. Often, it's enough make you think twice before voicing opinions about the corporate gravy train.

A lot of the great things that were achieved were done by companies. Some bad things as well.

Companies (and I guess capitalism) is a great system. But it needs to have checks and balances. The problem isn't the idea of a company. The problem is companies with so much influence that the historical checks and balances do not work any more. The Internet, which was a public resource, is how those companies got to be so influential.

If we look at the Amazon example most of the issues could be solved via regulation. The company can be broken up. There can be laws that govern its behaviour (like extending consumer protection laws to cover newer situations). The problem is that where in the past law makers were less "afraid" to take on businesses now they are. Especially in the US where money talks and companies spend large amounts influencing policy makers. This is by the way not a partisan issue, it's a systemic issue.

EDIT: Maybe a precursor, or another variation, of some of this was allowing companies that had a business model of "circumventing" the law to operate (Uber, Airbnb etc.). Being a taxi without requiring a taxi fee, being a hotel without the requirements of a hotel etc. If this is our innovation then it shouldn't be a surprise when more laws are bent and worked around.

The practical alternative to communism is capitalism. But pure, unadulterated capitalism isn't what we want. Otherwise we end up with lead paint in children's toys and adulterated pet food that kills dogs.

The reason regulations exist, is because humans -- for whatever god damn reason -- are willing to throw their fellow humans under the bus for a quick profit.

What if a company could figure out how to profit from destroying the social fabric of the US, even if it wasn't a direct intention of it's original inception? Well now you're talking about all of social media in 2025.

As I see it corporations by themselves are not really bad at all. Monopoly is really bad. What is the worst is when the law and Supreme Court allows them to use unlimited amounts of money to effect the outcome of elections. Fascism that way lies.

Antitrust is worse than monopolies. If all the petroleum companies in the US decided to collude to set prices, that's really bad.

And with the current administration, it's just a bribe away from a pardon.

I have no quibble with that historical perspective, and I share disappointment in our collective anthropological failings, but I take issue with the moral considerations and the false equivalence between company and corporation. Not all companies are incorporated; companies are a much broader category than simply corporations, since they include associations, trusts, institutions, partnerships and so forth.

Moreover, if corporations are people, then it is not moral to parcel them out as property. No person should be owned, whether wholly or in shares. The legal doublethink sustaining both ideas simultaneously reveals a fundamental contradiction of principles and profound lack of moral clarity.

In the most debased extrapolation of the ownership scenario, the corporation must obey even the most shameless demands of its owners, taking all the blame and liability upon itself, whilst forwarding any gains back to the owners.

Of course, this has already happened.

Consequently, in this era, corporations have become primarily a liability shield for the exploitation and concentration of wealth.

A really simple idea I had for the problem of perverse corporate incentives.

For each of the Fortune 500, assemble a committee of 100 random citizens. Have them spend a couple months deliberating on the conduct of that firm, before finally voting on what corporate income tax should be levied on that firm in the coming fiscal year.

The beauty of this solution is that in principle, it solves the problem of virtually any possible corporate misbehavior in a single fell swoop. No need to play whack-a-mole with mountains of laws and regulations. If a random citizen might learn about it, and decide that it isn't right, you shouldn't do it. If you do it anyways, you'll feel pain in your wallet (on expectation at least), and acquire a cost disadvantage relative to competing firms which are more virtuous. Simple.

Companies are a legal fiction. They can be abolished as easily as they were created. We just lack any imagination to think of something different. That doesn't mean there isn't a better idea.

Companies are an acknowledgement that sometimes groups of people do things together.

Ideally, maybe. In most cases however, companies feel more like groups of people forced to work together, and often are working against each other.

You have workers laboring for the profit of owners. It’s more than just people doing things together.

That's part of the balance we (most developed/Global North societies) have fallen into.

But it isn't entirely one-sided. A laborer is not legally responsible or liable for the legal or financial decisions a company makes. Their relationship is much clearer: do X work and get Y pay, as agreed (and hopefully labor law gets involved when that agreement is breached or contested. Hopefully.)

Meanwhile a (co-)owner is more liable and subject to enforcement than an employee. That owner may (let's be honest, will) make much more profit than a laborer if a company is successful. But will also be much poorer if that company fails. The owners declare bankruptcy while the laborer still has their salary and just looks for a new job.

It's the risk-reward balance in action, codified in how we organize our businesses.

The owner has the privilege of risking capital. The worker has no choice but to work for basic necessities - because they have no capital. The worst case for an owner is that they declare bankruptcy - and are forced to join the working class to make ends meet. It’s hardly an exchange among equals.

That's a big (and almost offensive) assumption. Who is to say that the worker does not have their own alternative sources of capital, such as a farm, inheritance, creative outputs, own company, etc?

It's also an assumption that the worst case for an owner is to declare bankruptcy. Depending on the jurisdiction, they may be financially responsible for losses and debts; face civil or criminal charges for their role in the downfall; and reputational damage which prevents them from meaningful employment that someone else would get.

It's far from ideal, sure. But it also isn't as black-and-white as you assert.

It’s true at an aggregate level. Most workers don’t have capital. And owners dealing with consequences from bankruptcy is still a risk they have the privilege of taking. Jeff Bezos and the Amazon warehouse worker are not equals participating in equal exchange. Owner-worker is an intrinsically unequal relationship, with the deck stacked in favor of the owner.

I'm sick of people who cry "fire" but then follow up with "but, hey, I'm no fireman". WHAT is the alternative? What are you doing to realize it? We don't need anymore more specialists who focus on pointing out the problems.

Yeah, people who aren't firemen shouldn't be allowed to shout "fire!" they should just burn to death.

On a charitable reading I think the gist of the comment you're responding to is that we could use some more volunteer firefighters.

Read The Dawn of Everything if you want to see all the possibilities. If there is any fact about human organization it's that there have been and continues to be a huge variety of forms. You just have to be creative enough to see them.

> That doesn't mean there isn't a better idea.

I'm genuinely curious, what better idea are you referring to that would replace the concept of companies?

Are they not a "legal fiction" in the way that a marriage, or a state, is legal fiction? Even in the absence of legislation codifying them they will still exist in some form. People will still form long term romantic relationships for the purpose of raising kids, joint decision-making, and ensuring that the other receives your possessions in death. Groups of people who share a language, culture, and geography will still form tribes or clans or some other form of institution even if it isn't strictly Westphalian statehood.

Similarly, skilled workers will still find that their labor is more efficient when they work together. And with scale comes the need for sales, administration, and all the other components which make up a company as we know it today.

I assume by "we" lacking imagination you mean humanity as a whole, and that just isn't true - we have lots of imaginative people who have attempted lots of different ways to arrange an economy, with varying degrees of success. We've tried flavors of state-run enterprise (from "crown corporations" here in Canada all the way to full collectivization in leftist and fascism in rightist systems) plus voluntary co-ops like kibbutz or communes. Not to mention publicly traded vs privately held corporations.

Humanity has the imagination and often has had the pleasure of "experimenting" with various methods.

"it is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism"

Only a child would be so unfamiliar with history as to make a claim like that.

Sure, so perhaps you can enlighten me rather than make a cryptic single-sentence post. When have companies as entities of commerce been abolished, and what did the results look like? What's more, has this ever happened in a society when every large "bad actor" company is expressly a multinational concern?

Seems to me that whatever might have happened 90-500 years ago is of no modern relevance, for good or ill, and that what the author of the article alludes to is a foolish and indeed childish criticism.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com