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by logicchains 4101 days ago
Whether or not a company is allowed to buy another company is a matter of economic freedom. All other things being equal, the more freedom companies have to buy others, the greatest the level of economic freedom, as freedom to buy is a component of economic freedom.

Allowing companies to buy any companies has issues. Not allowing companies to buy other companies also has issues. So how could any intermediate situation not have issues? If it forbids in some cases, it will have some of the problems associated with forbidding. If it allows in some cases, it will have some of the problems associated with lenience.
2 comments
microtonal 4101 days ago
Allowing companies to buy any companies has issues. Not allowing companies to buy other companies also has issues.

You seem to reason in really absolutist terms. You can have an open economy, where a government can still intervene if the current market situation has an extremely negative effect on society.

E.g. breaking cartels, monopolies or oligopolies where they seriously hurt a population does not throw away all the benefits of capitalism.

The disadvantage of one extreme is that you cannot have free enterprise, the other extreme is that you might end up with a few megacorps who control the market and ultimately society. In the middle you have a situation where there is free enterprise, but as a cooperation you also have to play by the rules that were set up to maintain fair competition and avoid centralisation of power.

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logicchains 4101 days ago
>In the middle you have a situation where there is free enterprise, but as a cooperation you also have to play by the rules that were set up to maintain fair competition and avoid centralisation of power.

The middle situation faces the potential of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture. This state-enforced monopoly is a small-scale manifestation of the complete state monopoly associated with 100% state ownership. The only way to completely avoid regulatory capture is to have no regulatory agencies, but this of course brings troubles of its own. There's no perfect middle.

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microtonal 4101 days ago
Sure. First of all, in all systems averse effects can happen. Secondly, regulatory capture is countered by democracy and transparency. If politicians become corrupted, you vote them away. In capitalism without regulation, there is no good way for citizens to intervene (except through violence).
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logicchains 4100 days ago
How's voting the corrupt politicians away working in practice in the US? From what I hear, not very well.
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jsankey 4101 days ago
Your argument now amounts to "there will always be issues", which is correct but not useful. What matters is what those issues are, how important, and how severe at each point on the scale. We're now talking at such an abstract level that it's not really meaningful...
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logicchains 4101 days ago
>Your argument now amounts to "there will always be issues", which is correct but not useful.

The argument I responded to was essentially asserting the existence of a non-capitalist solution that would have prevented Apple from buying FoundationDB without negative consequences. If I successfully argue that there are no perfect solutions, than that undermines the argument to which I was replying, and forces the poster to engage with the issue in more detail than just "capitalism is bad".

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