Corporate entities should have a forced maximum lifespan

[Hyena]

I agree, fuck all these monopolies man.

Quite true, we don't have capitalism --- we have monopolism.

Competition is sin.

sauce: http://criminalbankingmonopoly.wordpress.com/

[leannemckim46]

To the guys calling me an idiot: you have fallen into the trap of seeing just what you want to see.

To others: nice discussion and I thank you for participation. Many interesting thoughts have been generated as a result of my original post and I am now convinced that while the idea suits well for science fiction stories it has no place in the capitalistic world.

I would also like to emphasize that what I brought up is actually already present in a form of CEO mortality. For example, Apple sort of died with Jobs.

Actually have to point this out?

If a company, which relies on free and voluntary interactions between customers and company, has been around for 100 years it must be because the customers value the company because the company pleases them. Thus you are stating that you should destroy something which is pleasing the community to make way for something that isn't pleasing the community (because new business can not compete without resources it can not get without coercive redistribution)?

This is one of the least thought through argument I have ever seen, not even counting the avocation of the use of force to steal another's property!

Exactly. The companies that are not able to meet the needs of their customers while keeping costs below revenues will eventually die off. Companies that are able to evolve and adapt to changing markets will prosper. It is Darwinism at it's finest.

[Hyena]

Exactly. The companies that are not able to meet the needs of their customers while keeping costs below revenues will eventually die off. Companies that are able to evolve and adapt to changing markets will prosper. It is Darwinism at it's finest.

Makes sense. We can see a company as a species. Although individual members of the species have rather short life spans the species in its totality can potentially live very old.

[BeeTeeSea]

I agree, these monolopies rig the game.

[zorke]

I see corporate entities as an organism, they will all inevitably die if they do not change and evolve, because the enviroment they operate in changes. If the corporate entity survives half a century, it must have evolved several times through several business cycles. So, it is already a different organism, the old entity is in fact dead and consumed by the new entity.

This is a good analogy. Any company that is not able to embrace chance based on the changing marketplace will eventually fail and it's assets will be taken over (purchased) by some stronger entity.

What the OP is advocating for is the stronger entities to be forced to be killed after x number of years and the assets be "donated" to the weaker companies. This would clearly be a great destruction of wealth and a bad idea

[leannemckim46]

Exactly. The companies that are not able to meet the needs of their customers while keeping costs below revenues will eventually die off. Companies that are able to evolve and adapt to changing markets will prosper. It is Darwinism at it's finest.

Makes sense. We can see a company as a species. Although individual members of the species have rather short life spans the species in its totality can potentially live very old.

If you were to look at it this way then you could say that the owner of a business (shareholders) are the individual members of the species, and the actual business is the actual species. When the shareholders sell their stake (their shares) they "die" and a new shareholder is "born"