[HN Gopher] Opinion: Don't Stop at Big Tech-We Need to Bust Big ...
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Opinion: Don't Stop at Big Tech-We Need to Bust Big Agriculture,
Too
Author : doener
Score : 96 points
Date : 2021-02-07 18:09 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (modernfarmer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (modernfarmer.com)
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| The root cause are mega acquisitions and mergers that create
| monopolies or oligopolies.
| An0mammall wrote:
| I have the feeling that a few big corporations dominating most
| markets becomes more and more of a reality, with the
| pandemic/crises accelerating that process even more.
| tdido wrote:
| We're certainly already there with food related companies:
| https://www.businessinsider.com/10-companies-control-the-foo...
| markdown wrote:
| They want me to pay $12 to see that five year old article
| about a graphic that I'm sure I saw circulating on the
| internet ten years ago.
| tdido wrote:
| Ah, sorry about that. I'm not getting a paywall for
| whatever reason.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| I might be wrong, but for the most part, is this just an American
| issue? big Pharma, Big Tobacco, Big Tech, Big Sugar, etc? Europe
| has less international heavyweight companies, true, but also
| doesn't seem to be in the grips of cartels anywhere near as much
| as the US.
|
| Maybe I'm just being oblivious...
| hilbertseries wrote:
| I would encourage you to read more about what tobacco companies
| have been doing in developing countries. Big tobacco is
| certainly a global problem.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/12/big-tobacco-di...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Samsung/LG/Hyundai/Reliance come to mind.
|
| I think it's more a problem of technology enabling massive
| economies of scale so the big players can always be the lowest
| price. And also technology is so complicated that few have the
| resources to be able to compete. Even Intel struggles with
| TSMC, and how many different teams of people are there in the
| world that can make fabs?
| shimonabi wrote:
| You are wrong. The German car industry practically runs German
| politics.
| baridbelmedar wrote:
| Agree, the German car industry is so big that its interests
| obviously affect German politics. And since Germany is the
| most influential country in the EU, this makes the German car
| industry automatically very influential (in a not so positive
| sense).
| [deleted]
| Nbox9 wrote:
| We either need a much lower standard for anti-trust breakups or
| we will reach the day where corporations are more powerful than
| national governments. Tech gets a lot of the focus on anti-trust
| concerns, but we have similar threats almost every industry.
| thereare5lights wrote:
| I don't see how this is possible unless either the corps become
| the government or the corps have their own military.
| geofft wrote:
| Corps don't need a military in their own name if they can
| influence existing militaries to do what they want. Chiquita
| did this repeatedly, for instance - they got the Colombian
| military to fire on striking workers in 1928, they got the US
| military to overthrow the Guatemalan government in 1954, they
| funded a paramilitary terrorist organization in Colombia from
| 1997 to 2004, etc.
| thereare5lights wrote:
| Right but the issue is corps becoming _more_ powerful than
| government. Needing to act through the government would
| seem to indicate that corps are _not_ more powerful.
| MikeUt wrote:
| Do they "need to act through government", or do they
| "control government to act for them"?
| rhizome wrote:
| > _or we will reach the day where corporations are more
| powerful than national governments_
|
| It's been true for decades that multinational corporations can
| push governments around by threatening to move their HQ or
| manufacturing or literally any other public benefit that they
| provide (like jobs) to any of the other countries they operate
| in (and maybe even some new ones that are campaigning for their
| attention).
|
| Of course it's more complex than that in practice, but in a
| similar way that billionaires are (or can be seen as) a
| systemic economic failure, so too can highly capitalized
| organizations manipulate their living environments for their
| sole benefit, to the detriment of the vast majority of people
| that the organization touches with their actions. Jamie Dimon
| and Steve Mnuchin should be in prison right now for their
| performances around 2008, but instead they are vaunted leaders
| worldwide suffering zero consequences for their widely-
| destructive failures. This state of affairs is obviously not a
| meritocracy.
|
| Antitrust enforcement operates pretty much at the leisure of
| the offenders, regulatorily captured like a lot of oversight in
| our increasingly authoritarian world.
| technofiend wrote:
| The same dance is played out with sports teams. Oh no payer-
| funded stadium? Fine, we'll move the team.
| jldugger wrote:
| Or even just moderately sized companies nobody in their
| right minds is hinting at breaking up: https://www.npr.org/
| sections/money/2016/05/04/476799218/epis...
|
| I don't think the size of the company really matters, just
| how hungry politicians are for votes, and how starved their
| government is for tax money.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| If governments start cutting off markets to corporations,
| then corporations will accede to whichever market is the
| biggest (China, EU, and the US, in that order).
|
| I don't like the system we have now but I also don't like
| corporate governance being determined by market size.
| Geezus_42 wrote:
| "the day where corporations are more powerful than national
| governments."
|
| Snowcrash...
| hshshs2 wrote:
| I'd argue that Facebook is already more powerful than many
| small and developing countries. Millions of people spend hours
| a day on their platform... in the past they've disclosed
| experimenting with affecting the emotions of users (with little
| self awareness and no express consent). They've contributed to
| genocide in Myanmar and numerous other social issues.
|
| A few minor algorithm shifts could potentially sway public
| opinion or even gradually radicalize people and they're more
| aware of it than anyone, especially the leadership of the
| country they primarily operate in.
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| I think we do need a more consistent standard. Right now it
| feels like it's a popularity contest judged almost entirely by
| which industry the media has decided to hate on.
| geofft wrote:
| Isn't that day already here? For instance, isn't the existence
| of the Double Irish a demonstration that large corporations can
| basically choose national governments as if from a marketplace
| and arrange their corporate structure in whatever way exposes
| them to the most favorable laws, completely independent of
| where they're actually doing business?
| rhencke wrote:
| Yes. Examples:
|
| Facebook - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/00
| 0132680117...
|
| Apple - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/000032
| 0193170...
|
| Google - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/0001
| 19312507...
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| I am not sure if that's a bad thing? In some sense, that is
| the point of having different countries.
|
| It's nothing conceptually different from the US deciding to
| tax its citizens on their worldwide income even when they are
| living abroad. It's "completely independent of where they're
| actually doing business or living"
| geofft wrote:
| US citizens gain benefits from the US government by
| definition, and they have the ability to give up their
| citizenship if they don't want that. The reason they're
| taxed is that they are actually subjecting themselves to US
| jurisdiction, in addition to the jurisdiction of whatever
| country they're physically in. (For instance, they can
| choose to leave the country they're currently in and be
| allowed visa-free entry to any country that permits visa-
| free entry to US citizens, and of course they can choose to
| return to the US.)
|
| The Double Irish involves a company in non-Ireland country
| A doing business with a customer in non-Ireland country B,
| and routing that transaction through Ireland. I have no
| issue with either A or B deciding that they ought to tax
| this transaction, because both countries are relevant.
| throwaway2245 wrote:
| > In some sense, that is the point of having different
| countries.
|
| If large corporations can decide to pick their country of
| incorporation freely and according to what most benefits
| them, but people can't (in general) pick their country of
| citizenship, then something has gone wrong.
| roenxi wrote:
| More powerful in what sense? For corporations to be more
| powerful than a standing government there would need to be a
| bunch of private armies roaming around. Although mercenaries
| can be found it isn't on the scale where it could threaten a
| government.
| underseacables wrote:
| CAFOS are adding considerable chemicals, and synthetics to put
| food supply but it seems they are the food supply..
| omosubi wrote:
| > Americans depend on a safe, functional and resilient food
| system at least as much as they depend on their social media
| networks or ability to search the internet.
|
| Shouldn't this say "far more" rather than "at least as much as."
| We simply don't need search engines and social networks. We do
| need food systems
| xwdv wrote:
| You know I wonder, is there a Big-Anything that people don't want
| busted?
| pietrovismara wrote:
| If the problem is size itself, than big as a model needs to be
| busted in general. Doesn't depend on the industry.
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