[HN Gopher] A Brief History of the Corporation: 1600 to 2100 (2011)
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A Brief History of the Corporation: 1600 to 2100 (2011)
Author : simonpure
Score : 28 points
Date : 2023-06-11 17:46 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ribbonfarm.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ribbonfarm.com)
| smodo wrote:
| A little too much hand waving here for my taste. The ambitions
| set out by the author are huge and underpinning the entire thing
| is an individuals reading of some (Western) history books. Then
| there are a lot of personal inventions like 'reach' to describe
| corporate power. Surely there are well established academic
| concepts for this.
| dmvdoug wrote:
| There are a lot of posts like this here on HN: history by
| lumpers. They try to discern large-scale patterns or one or two
| keys that unlock a coherent, consistent interpretation of
| history.
|
| I am a splitter. It turns out that _every_ interpretation
| produced by lumpers depends on oversimplifying or flattening
| the past in ways that are demonstrably wrong. Lumpers say that
| that doesn't invalidate their larger point. The details are
| just the decorative garnish, not the fundamental point. It is
| self-evident, to me, that that is wrong. But I'm a splitter,
| not a lumper. I didn't choose to be a splitter after carefully
| considering the alternative(s: it's a continuum, of course,
| more than a binary state). Splitting comes natural to me. The
| details really do matter. You can't inductively build useful
| models of human being on top of incorrect or inaccurate
| observations of humans being in the world.
|
| How much lumping, or splitting, one can tolerate is one of
| those mysterious facts about yourself that are black boxed even
| to your inspection. De gustibus non est disputandum, I suppose.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Have you read Peter Turchin? Maybe ultimate lumper, as he
| tries to find formulaic equations for rise and fall of
| societies?
|
| I would make one counter point to Lumpers/Splitters. If you
| have all the details, you can loose the ability to use that
| data. It is a problem in all fields, millions of data points
| can obfuscate what is happening, a nice trend line is over-
| simplified, but lets you make some judgments.
|
| Have you seen all of the books on WW2 or Civil War, do you
| need to read them all and know all details before you can
| make any judgments, or form any opinions. Or can you read an
| 'overview' that leaves out the details but gives the broad
| strokes.
|
| Guess I've seen too many people go down the 'details' rabbit
| whole, and in the end not produce anything but more details
| that aren't adding.
|
| But, have to caveat. I think it is very valuable that people
| are out there doing detailed research, so there are details
| available. Just think there is also a lot of value in finding
| patterns. And I'd disagree that history is too complex to
| find patterns.
|
| Same old problem. The more simplified the model, the more it
| could be inaccurate, but the more detailed the model, then it
| is overfit and not providing any information. Do you need to
| know what was going through the minds of every civil war
| solder at Gettysburg, every movement, to know who won?
| fritzo wrote:
| Ah what a clarifying perspective: lumpers vs splitters /s
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| It should be easy to keep in mind that the American colonies were
| founded by multinational corporations for the benefit of
| multinational corporations.
| [deleted]
| bedobi wrote:
| nothing to see here folks, just a polemical amateurish
| regurgitation of pop doom econ tropes
| dmvdoug wrote:
| From 2011, no less. Like, the past 12 years alone refute the
| prediction of corporate decline.
| pg_1234 wrote:
| https://archive.ph/SJzYd
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