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Re:Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations by ncmncm on Sunday January 12, 2020 @05:46AM (#22025621)
It is essentially the same at all corporations, always has been.

Lenin was a great admirer of Ford Motor Company. His Soviet committees were copied directly from Ford.

You could think of the SSRs as divisions, and satellite countries as wholly-owned subsidiaries.

Re:Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations by pjc50 on Sunday January 12, 2020 @06:30AM (#22025776)
Conversely, Ford was its own colonial power, much like the United Fruit Company or Shell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordl%C3%A2ndia

Fordlândia had its own version of Prohibition, and its own little revolt about the cafeteria.

Re:Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations by awb on Sunday January 12, 2020 @11:19AM (#22027036)
I've overheard forms of this many times from C/VP-level execs facing internal debate: "We're not running a democracy here".

It is interesting that we only see it in government. Most companies are dictatorships. Some might have a board of directors that is responsible for voting in it's own members, kind of like a tribal elders system.

It's interesting to see these different forms of decision making producing different advantages and disadvantages.

Re:Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations by wskinner on Sunday January 12, 2020 @11:40AM (#22027210)
The difference is that the natural state of the corporation is to go extinct. Governments have so much inertia that it often takes a literal revolution to replace them.

Bad externalities are the downside to dictatorships. The externalities of a corporation are much more limited, and there is more pressure to reduce them (from governments, other corporations, and their customers).

Continuing the dictatorship metaphor, this pushes corporations to be more “benevolent”.

Re:Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations by wrinkl3 on Sunday January 12, 2020 @01:11PM (#22027894)
Except for those that become "Too big to fail". Banks don't seem to dissolve naturally all that often.
Re:Tech giants have as much money and influence as nations by rfmw19 on Monday January 13, 2020 @12:34PM (#22036576)
> Most companies are dictatorships.

That's an interesting conclusion. I guess one big difference is that in most places you have a choice in whether or not to work for a company, but you don't have this choice when being born in a dictatorship, unless you consider migrating elsewhere a reasonable choice. It seems there are also less good choices when considering where to work (i.e. they're all becoming dictatorships?).

It's also as bad when you consider paying or using a free service provided by a dictatorship company. Do we really have a choice anymore? You may not choose email provider X, but all your friends use X so in the end it doesn't matter, e.g. in terms of data privacy. You may not choose social network Y, but all your friends have so you're forced to participate in the dictatorship, e.g. if you want to have a normal life.