The Theory of the corporation

[Jim Choate]

On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> This is naive. Nobody here of any substance has argued "the market is
> always right" or anything of the sort. Anyone remember the Edsel? The
> dot com crash? It is, however, more likely to produce desirable
> effects than state-provided goods and services are.

Who's desirable effects? The 'market' is a statistical beast, it breaths
and lives on groups of individuals doing basically the same thing, only
with different colors or shapes. Why? Because people share many, many,
common needs and drives. The 'guiding hand' is human group psychology.
People are strange, and there are a lot of them. It is better that they
each be allowed to find their own way, than to make them all use one way.
At least then each has a hope of better times. The alternative is a 3 hour
symphony in G above Middle C for about 75 years.

> The reason cypherpunkish types are more concerned about government
> abuses than perceived corporate abuses is that one can switch grocery
> stores if you don't like their privacy policy, but you don't have that
> choice when dealing with the U.S. government.

You can until they create a strategy that is hyperbolic with respect to
competitors. Then the market monopolizes. The reality is that a market of
two choices is only marginaly better than a market of one choice. It does
not have the ecological variety that a more diverse atmosphere would
create.

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