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In today’s world is it actually in our best interest to have the government break up large organizations? Or is that the worse of 2 evils?

The state derives a lot of its power globally from wealth, influence, military power (funded by wealth). The state is only as powerful as it is - and only as capable as it is at promoting American interests in the world because it has many of the biggest winner-take-all corporations in its jurisdiction.

A world where it breaks them up while China keeps them is probably a world where China is far more powerful than the US

The meta as a state today is to cultivate as much wealth and power as possible by encouraging super corporations

> In today’s world is it actually in our best interest to have the government break up large organizations?

I genuinely struggle to think of a social ill we're currently facing that isn't down in one way or another to some mega-entity acting against the public interest with no fears of reprisal because it is "too big to fail."

> A world where it breaks them up while China keeps them is probably a world where China is far more powerful than the US

The US has demonstrated thoroughly it cannot and is not interested in preventing the ascent of a Chinese superpower, simply from the fact that, if you believe them at face value, the current ruling party and administration are absolutely ripping the walls out from the U.S. Government largely to prevent that exact phenomenon, and have utterly failed to do so. And, in their ineptitude, have in fact both made the United States a global embarrassment and left tons of soft power just sitting on the damn table for China to pick up.

> A world where it breaks them up while China keeps them is probably a world where China is far more powerful than the US

... but we have a lot of these supposed super-corporations. The problem is the United States, contrary to the ramblings of numerous chronically online people, does not actually use it's authority. Those corporations are in fact far more worried about accessing China's market than ours, because we don't regulate and they do, and there's far more Chinese consumers than American ones.

Add to it America's consumers are already strip-mined to the studs and China's middle class is growing... I mean. It's just full steam ahead on American irrelevance.

I think the real lesson is that when you're the big player already benefiting from global free trade in virtually every single way, laying tariffs on everything and sabotaging foreign investment in your own country is... well. Fucking stupid?

You can't come up with any social ills caused by the federal government?

I mean it largely depends how you define that. I can think of a lot of social ills the government isn't working to solve... poverty, houselessness, poor funding of schools in general, the ongoing deterioration of social programs, but I wouldn't say they're the cause of those issues?

Fact is when you scratch even fingernail deep on any of them you find the private sector, far more often than not. The welfare state is in tatters because numerous components of it have been privatized and are operated by contracted companies who are siphoning off substantial amounts of the utter pittance we dedicate to the problem itself, which means what gets to the people who need it is even more a pittance than it started as.

The houseless issue is perpetuated in part by local governments zoning restrictions and the myriad of issues around building them here, from supplies to labor availability, and also a substantial contributor is the fact that huge amounts of homes are being purchased by investment companies and hoarded either without people in them, or are rented out in which case worker's earned income is being siphoned off to those already far wealthier than they need to be.

Poor funding of schools is often due to a whole mess of factors relating both to how we as a society prioritize education (or don't, more often) and the fact that a school's funding is heavily dependent on property taxes around where it is operating, which means under served areas have less quality schools from the off, which means less educated people with less money to spend, which means less economic activity, which means less property taxes and so on and so forth.

And in all of these and many other problems you have the elephant in the room: lobbying. Corporations spend billions to lobby the government to do even less than it does about these and a bunch of other issues, chief among them to permit said corporations to hold more money, a solid portion of which can then be spent on yet more lobbying. And certainly the government and it's politicians aren't simply helpless patsies in that arrangement, I also would hold the people making the decisions to route that money far more responsible.

> only as capable as it is at promoting American interests in the world because it has many of the biggest winner-take-all corporations in its jurisdiction.

At a glance it seems this would only remain true so long as American interests and the interests of the corporation align. Which they do, up to a point.

The question then becomes where is the "triple point" between "A globally competitive USA", "Corporate oligarchy", and "Power to the people"? If such a balance can when exist

Overall national wealth and power shrink under monopoly super corporations, that is the reason it is a matter of public policy in the first place. If you go back and review the major antitrust actions of the 20th century, each one was followed by an explosion of market-creating innovation: Standard Oil, Bell Telephone, even Microsoft. Look even further back, and many national economies were organized around a few state-sponsored monopolies e.g. the East India Company. They all lost ground to economies with more numerous and competitive companies, most notably the U.S.

Really? 20 mid sized Googles is better for US power than 1 mega Google dominating the planet? Repeat for any corporation.

Breaking these megacorps benefits little guys like you and me, but I doubt it benefits state power on the global stage

i think it could be argued that sure, 20 Googles would be better for US power, yes. why wouldn’t it be? it would drive more innovation which likely would only increase our influence on multiple levels.

there could be more reason to argue it would absolutely be more secure—if any of these tech giants or one of the people inside were to sell us out it could be very very bad. if one or two out of twenty were to sell us out, the damage is much much less severe.

not to mention we’re significantly stronger as a country when we have diversity of ideas leading to diversity in innovation which the dominance from a tiny few just entirely undermines.

As long as the state has power over Google (and it does, even if the media cycle presents it like they’re powerless), they can surveil billions of people, control populations, distribute propaganda.

Look how the US is able to spread it’s culture everywhere, cut off regimes, debank people it doesn’t like, all by controlling a few choke points.

Look how China uses its corporations to increase state power. The US does the same but with a few more carrots (lucrative govt contracts).

A mega corp means you can do your coercion behind closed doors rather than with sweeping regulations

> 20 mid sized Googles is better for US power than 1 mega Google dominating the planet?

Considering google search became complete crap under monopoly conditions, absolutely yes.

While the google had to compete, they produced good things and innovated. Now they just focus on milking maximum from the monopoly

I'm actually not advocating for a reduction in the size of government bodies and I'm a bit frustrated about it. I'm not advocating anything about the size of government bodies (though naturally I have my feelings.) I'm confused why people seem to be intuiting this. I'm in fact doubly frustrated because I feel that people seem to be injecting modern political points into something that I feel predates many of our modern problems.

My point is: the social problems of disenfranchisement that come from large organizations are a property of their size. They may differ in that they're volunteer based, profit oriented, non-profit in a capitalist system, democratically organized, or several hundred or thousand more distinctions. But I'm going to feel just as disconnected from my national government as I will from the workings of Google as a small shareholder as I will from the NBA as someone that plays pick-up on a basketball court. The experience of going to a minor league baseball game is much more personal than going to a major MLB game.

To me the important issue is: the US specifically and the Anglophone West more broadly is seeing a decrease in its small institutions. This decrease predates the modern internet and social media landscape (see Bowling Alone.) I have many, many questions around this. Why is this happening? What is its effect on society? How can we reverse this? Is this something we can reverse?

It's an important issue to me because this trajectory is very different outside of the Anglophone West. Japan for example is not seeing the same decline in its small organizations as the US is, despite population reduction. If anything Japanese life is dominated much more by huge conglomerates than US life.

That's fair. I think a lot of reactions, mine included, are because most of the time when someone discusses the downsides of a large state, they're advocating for a small one from a libertarian lens, so I think I imputed motives to your arguments.

You're right about this generally, though. I've got two different theories for why this is happening.

First, I think the US is "individually nomadic" in a way that many other countries and cultures are not - it is unusual, at least in the populous areas, for someone to spend their entire life in one area, and doubly so for an entire family or community to stay geographically colocated long enough to really build durable organizations. I think this changes a bit as people get older, but it's quite normal for someone to move every 5 years or so between the age of, say, 20 and 60. Arguably this is driven by economics - job availability, especially for professionals, is a big reason for these moves.

I think there's something self-reinforcing about the trend, as well - notably, as, say, the focus in politics concentrates on the federal government, it becomes harder for people to really see the benefit in local politics. The repeal of Roe v. Wade, for example, is a policy made at the national level with strong impacts locally; similarly the recent change in policy around both trans rights and immigration are hard for people to look past towards local politics (I think this is a mistake - large politics are built on small politics - but I think it's a factor).

I'd also suspect impatience plays a part - it's hard to build an organization, it's hard to negotiate status and relationships, it's hard to keep something viable, and we've got a lot of easier routes to dopamine than bothering to meet up with other people now.

Hmmm... I would argue the disengagement of citizens and the lack of participation is not strictly because of organizational size. It is the fact these organizations cannot care less about their customers, citizens, or the law. These rogue organizations are typically large.

The cause of disengagement is that organizations, large or small, are not responsive to customers needs or citizens needs. In many cases, they are actively working to the detriment of their own customers and the country at large.

This is due to regulatory capture. It is that simple.

And regulatory capture is best done as a large organisation.

Unresponsiveness is still a factor of size. First, there are numbers: typically only of X% of clients will have problems. As a company, you can either fix that problem or ignore it. If you ignore it, eventually the customer will churn. Now, if the market is made of 5-6 mega-corps, as a churned customer you have only a few options for a migration. That will rise (eventually) your bar to churn out.

If the market was made of 2000 small companies, you have much more options and companies are forced to better interact with you. Also, with a smaller user base a user churning is a higher percentage of revenue loss so, they are even more interested.

Like rock paper scissors, there are multiple dimensions to power and the state doesn’t always possess all of them. Media being the most obvious one (fourth estate). Federal bank another. As the split of government and parliament.

The state holds the guns, and if it doesn't hold the guns, it's not the thing I'm referring to as the state - fundamentally, the power of the state is the power of violence. Other actors may possess other types of power and other types of coercion, but those either leverage or are constrained by the state power of violence.

One could make an argument that the state does not hold a monopoly on violence. It holds a monopoly on the legitimization of violence. You're allowed to use deadly force to protect yourself from death or serious bodily harm in the majority of jurisdictions, provided it is not disproportionate. What matters is that the state declines to prosecute this, but does prosecute the person who hypothetically shoots someone on Fifth Avenue for no reason.

I am specifically not arguing the state has a monopoly on violence - as with the GP, people are imputing arguments I’m not making. It’s the fact that the state cannot have a monopoly on violence that forces the state to be powerful enough that its threat of violence outweighs others (and, bluntly, defines what the state IS, for all practical purposes: it is the entity whose threats of violence supersede all others.)

That's just semantics, for all intents and purposes the monopoly on violence is exactly that: the monopoly on the legitimisation of violence, only the state allows violence, you can only perform a violent act under the provisions the state allows, hence it's de facto and de jure holding the monopoly on violence.

Stating this because I'm not sure what differentiation you are trying to achieve with the semantics game, the meaning is the same for any interpretation.

The democratic state is less violent than the individuals as a whole (including the police), so the distinction comes from actual vs potential violence.

I'm assuming you don't count holding people in cages against their will under pain of extreme violence as violence?

The media has died though, ‘no one’ watches the MSM under 30, everyone is online in their safe space.

> The media has died though, ‘no one’ watches the MSM

Media != MSM

online is the media.

YouTube has gone mainstream.

As youtubers are getting more and more attention than the old medias, that may be an area where small groups are striving against large ones (so going against Terence's theory).

What small groups though? YouTube is owned and moderated by a trillion dollar company which heavily editorialize the user feed.

And more an more YouTube channels are owned by PE funds.

The small groups of influencers. YouTube is the new spectrum and public square. That’s why it was so harmful when Biden censored tens of thousands on it.

> That’s why it was so harmful when Biden censored tens of thousands on it.

Come on.

> The purpose of the state is to be the most powerful organization in the room - to constrain other actors

I'm not sure this is a universal definition. Some of us just want a state that maintains a monopoly on violence, and otherwise does not constrain peaceful actors. An administration of peaceful coexistence rather than a mandate for cooperation. While administrating the peace does require some absolute power, it is required narrowly, to prosecute true crime, defend from outside threats, and resolve disputes.

How is an entity with a monopoly on violence not the most powerful actor in the room? And in what way is administering the peace not constraining other actors?

The state is not an entity except in a very abstract sense.

> otherwise does not constrain peaceful actors.

Leading to individuals with net worths heading towards a trillion dollars who can just buy the government they want.

What you say you “want” is against your own interests.

I'm perfectly happy for some folks to have trillion dollar net worth. I'm glad to negotiate with these folks and their organizations to provide value in exchange for a comfortable living.

> just buy the government they want

The idea of a constitution and separation of powers is to constrain the types of government that can legitimately exist. This does work to some degree. No matter how wealthy you are, you can't kill people in public. Money is to buy goods and services in a free exchange. When government agents acting in their official capacity accept money or the promise thereof in exchange for official action, this is called corruption. All human systems are corrupt, and no solution to corruption is perfect, but ours is pretty good compared to others.

> The idea of a constitution and separation of powers is to constrain the types of government that can legitimately exist.

It's ironic to read this in the context of what's been happening in the US recently. When the trillionaires and grifters (but I repeat myself) have fully captured the US government, you'll be able to complain that that government is no longer "legitimate", but that's not much consolation.