Interview with Richard D. Wolff

[Rajiv]

Re: Interview with Richard D. Wolff

Yes but only to some extent -- the question is "how big should corporations be allowed to be." The smaller the company, the closer is the link between shareholders and employees.

Wolff's solutions really boil down to that IMO! I do not think corporations should be allowed to be molopolies or even large oligopolies.

Look also at the "Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy" -- some good thoughts there.

[Supercilious]

Re: Interview with Richard D. Wolff

I'm not sure I can subscribe to that view. Corporations can be as big as needed as long you don't have an unsustainable evolution of the wealth dispersion in a society. The wealth growth rate of the top 1% (or 10%) has to be limited as a sum (for the whole 1% or 10%) to levels below the total real wealth growth rate in a society, creating also a plain level field that allows for social mobility. If that is done through taxation and smart regulation then the rest doesn't matter. These are my two securitized cents.

[Rajiv]

Re: Interview with Richard D. Wolff

My problem with large corporations other than the monopoly/oligopoly considerations is the "too big to fail" consideration -- corporations should never be allowed to get to the stage where they are too big to fail.

Then there is the issue of corporate "personhood" and that of corporate liability (limited liability of the shareholders and management.)

[Supercilious]

Re: Interview with Richard D. Wolff

My problem with large corporations other than the monopoly/oligopoly considerations is the "too big to fail" consideration -- corporations should never be allowed to get to the stage where they are too big to fail.

Errr.... I'm not sure I agree with the idea there are entities which are "too big to fail". There are zombie corporations which when they fall/fail they may lean on other big zombie corporations, creating a zombie domino effect. Had they let AIG fail the losses were moved to AIG's counterparties. The AIG bailout was not done for saving AIG but to pump money in the counterparties.

You can have systemic risk only when the whole system is in a zombie stage. As long as a company is not engaged in an overt or covert (semi legal) form of fraud there is nothing wrong with big companies falling.

Then there is the issue of corporate "personhood" and that of corporate liability (limited liability of the shareholders and management.)

This is another issue that result from promoting unfair markets. We should not have limited liability of shareholders and management coupled with a free to loot deregulation. That makes fraud profitable and risk free. What if Enron had not been allowed to change its accounting to the mark-to-black_box_dreams?

[LargoWinch]

Re: Interview with Richard D. Wolff

...lol Pee-Wee. I guess that is the "New Title Needed".

back to the subject at hand, here is a clip from Richard D. Wolff discussing the auto industry on May 1, 2009 (10min.):

[metalman]

Re: Interview with Richard D. Wolff

reminds me of hudson... pointed libertarian critique, commie solutions.

[rogermexico]

Re: Interview with Richard D. Wolff

reminds me of hudson... pointed libertarian critique, commie solutions.

Metalman again reads the thoughts in my head...

To bastardize Carville's phrase - "It's the rent seeking, stupid".

Big corporations bully us primarily by becoming big enough to leverage the power of an intrusive and ubiquitous state.

No massive, intrusive, kloptocratic state with "representative democracy" to leverage via regulatory capture and rent seeking, no fearsomely large corporations using the government to their own advantage.

The idea of "too big to fail" is ludicrous. Blame the goverments for saving them with our future standard of living.

No Hudson jubilee or communist reordering of society is necessary.

The problem is the debt. We have an existing mechanism for destroying debt that cannot be repaid. It is called bankruptcy.

Let the big financial firms fail and let the stupid bondholders burn. That is the true capitalist solution.

[metalman]

Re: Interview with Richard D. Wolff

Let the big financial firms fail and let the stupid bondholders burn. That is the true capitalist solution.

oh, no! we can't do that. THE* world will come to an end. i read so in the nytimes and the wsj.

* THEIR world, that is. :mad: