[rayiner]

I disagree with this assertion that corporations are a "terrible way of turning human labor into work product." In industries like software? Sure. In industries like coal mining? Explain to me how a decentralized structure would be a more efficient way of marshaling the capital resources and labor necessary to blow the top off a mountain and extract a bunch of rocks from the carcass.

[michaelochurch]

Well, I'm not a fan of mountaintop removal. Still, I get your point, and you're right. I shouldn't say "corporations" are terrible at that, because there are a lot of processes that require (if nothing else) the legal structure of one, but that a certain management style associated with the 20th-century large corporation is counterproductive.

We can't know, because we can't go back in time, but I feel like those coal miners would have been just as productive (if not moreso) if they were better compensated for their work.

[rdouble]

As a point of interest, miners in Australia are astoundingly well compensated and taken care of compared to resource extraction workers in other countries.

[gehar]

As a point of information,

that was a point of information, not a point of interest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_information

[michaelochurch]

Mao says: no use of the words "point of interest" while in a point of interest. Three penalty cards!