Topic: Corporate entities should have a forced maximum lifespan (Read 2278 times)

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"

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

I agree, these monolopies rig the game.

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.

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.

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

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

I agree, fuck all these monopolies man.

The natural lifespan of a business is in its ability to meet the consumer's desires for as long as those needs exist; Coca-Cola, for example, is still around because people are still buying Coca-Cola products.  Businesses are not like people, they don't die when they get old, they die when they stop being useful.

To forcibly end a business because it has been around for a while just creates a giant vacuum in which people will demand said business be reinstituted so they can continue buying the products they wanted.  There is no law which has ever curbed man's desire; you make anything illegal, man willingly becomes criminal to continue getting the item he desires.

The only thing such an action will accomplish is making a lot of people lose work and costing all related businesses a good deal of money to replace the lost business, e.g. replacing all soda machines in every restaurant and venue in regards to Coca-Cola.

If you have an issue with corporations, why not advocate their special governmental rights be removed?  A corporation, after all, can only exist through politics:



This would certainly even the playing field and, with much fairer competition, other businesses can now compete much harder than before and, if a once corporation cannot compete, it'll die on its own.  This way, we don't have that massive production gap between having a business and not having a business, and there won't be a sudden loss of jobs as per your idea.

So you took the bait, big deal. I won't remember your account name anyway in the future when your credibility as a righteous participant in a discussion might really matter. 

Perhaps you should of written in the title that this is in fact the masturbatory fantasy

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.

maybe it's less bad for aliens to eat.

Yes, Apple As We Knew It sort of died, happy?

By the way, you will die too. And guess what, even if the bitcoins you hold during the moment of your death double their value YOU STILL DIE. So don't give me the numbers, you are clearly missing the point, whether on purpose or due to stupidity is another question. If you die you are no longer able to stand for your views. Can Jobs do that from his grave? No. If anything, he will just flip his side in his grave if the new company leaders fuck something up.

You clearly have missed the point here. I am not trying to propagate the system that I came up with. I don't even like it myself so why are you trying to debate me and portray me stupid? I am not your opponent, I agree with you but you seem to be so shallow minded that you think people never fantasize. You have to admit that playing the Devil's Advocate can turn out to be very useful sometimes because it makes people think from a new angle --- a more unorthodox angle. This is how innovation is born --- by thinking outside the box, by fantasizing.

AAPL capitalization when Jobs died (Oct 2011) was ~ $325B. AAPL capitalization today is over $600B. Yep, Apple sort of died. 
 

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!

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.

This makes sense to me. If a company knows that it will be "killed" at a certain time, then what is to prevent it from making shill companies that would assume the assets of the newly killed company? The answer is nothing. The only thing that would result in this is investors being hurt and manipulated

Not possible to make a company give up all they have worked for.  What if the company owner passes the power over to the child or some executive?  Why should they suffer because the company is successful?  This is the exact opposite of a free market and would likely stop innovation in may ways.

So all the employees lose their jobs? Become homeless in the streets? All that has been built is broken to pieces for the enjoyment of those who had nothing to do with building it?

At first I thought your post was a joke, then I sadly realized that idiot redistributionists like you actually exist.

Stupidest thing I've read in a while, you are an idiot, sort it out.

I have to admit if Nintendo made love Hotels I might be interested in seeing how they go with it
Can see a place where you can date or walk around with your favorite Nintendo characters
Well I guess that shows how a company needs to be dynamic (Can make a full service suite lol)
Nintendo transit to the love hotel on the way there playing card games then playing video games with your favorite nintendo mascots at the Love Hotel

1889? I didn't know they've been around for that long. It looks like they started out making playing cards, and then moved onto cab services and love hotels before settling on video games. A Nintendo love hotel would be interesting

Nintendo started in September 23, 1889. They are older than Sony.

They will die when no one buys their product. Otherwise, if there are artificial ways to make entities die, then they will find artificial ways to extend their life. They can simply close one corporation and form another, while retaining the brand.

Yep except for companies like the Hudsons Bay most corporations go bankrupt after a persons lifespan has passed and the founder or his sons have passed away
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies

That said a few do stick around forever Kongo Gumi FTW!

The company fell on hard times and went into liquidation in January 2006.[1] Its assets were purchased by Takamatsu Corporation.[2][3] Before its liquidation, it had over 100 employees and annual revenue of ¥7.5 billion ($70 million) in 2005; it still specialized in building Buddhist temples. The last president was Masakazu Kongō, the 50th Kongō to lead the firm. As of December 2006, Kongō Gumi continues to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Takamatsu.

Started in 578 technically still around but eaten in 2006 ^_^

Give it time. Immortality is coming.

Cooperate entities do have a lifespan. Most eventually died off in less than a century, and rarely do any survive more than 3-4 decades.

Some companies will die off because they are unable to adapt to an evolving marketplace. Some will succeed because they can continue to innovate and lead in their respective industries. This does not mean that every company should be forced to die after a certain amount of time.

McDonalds will be on Pluto by 2045.

Being able to earn money off of the backs of other is what capitalism is about. If you do not invest in your workers and machines that your workers use then the workers and your suppliers will not be able to earn a living nor have any kind of standard of living. In return for this investment you should get some kind of return.

It's an interesting thought exercise, but I think enforcing something like that is in the fantasy realm.  It seems similar to the concept of copyright, which we have been crapping on for a long time now. 

Problems with corporations won't be fixed by creating arbitrary laws and restrictions. The right way to fix a problem is to fix the problem. Laws like the one proposed here will only create more problems than they try to solve.

This is an incredibly horrible idea

Being born into 10 Trillion dollars should not enable you to buy up 100 companies and earn massive money from all their work.

Generally speaking 80% of the wealth is controlled by 20% of the richest people. You are however correct to say that investors control companies and should not be punished just because a company has been around for a long time.

Of course a couple families own everything, the system is rigged

Does not matter they are owned and controlled by private investors...  90% of companies are public... owned by investors who do not have to inform anyone how much they own and of what..

It should be public who owns what shares and how many.. Even more so for the holders of the central banks..

The odds are.. like 9/10 that several families own 80% of everything.

That's a good one of course countries should die too! That might be even more important than the corporations extermination.

But generally, I can now see why this forced extermination is not required --- people who run these businesses are not immortal. They will die, and this gives chance to newer generations. But of course, inheritance pretty much ruins it.


Some alien species consider soul as the true inheritance receiver. If an alien ruler dies, its soul is caught and put into one of its children. The child's soul is taken away and stored until the ruler gets another child which needs that soul.

Big corporations do die. I once had a Pontiac car and a Compaq computer. Both are gone. I agree that some corporations are very good at perpetuating themselves, but times are changing, and I'll be happy to see BTC kill Western Union and Paypal.

Countries should die too. Yugoslavia died recently, I'd like to see all countries disappear.

This is true. The vast majority of businesses will fail within 5 years. If you make it so that companies cannot last more then 100 years then you will only discourage smart people from starting a business with the hopes of passing it along to their family for generations

Logans Run for business?

Really can not see how this would work to be honest or may be it's just me. I can not see how you can take a group of companies, exterminate them and create new and expect them to be a success.

The guys that will inherit a life of not needing to work a single day of their lives thanks to being form within the cocacola, ford etc families, will disagree with you.

This makes no sense. First of all, accounting rules are that a company must be a going concern in order for it's books to be accurate. A "going concern" is something that is expected to be able to stay in business "forever" based on the current environment.

Secondly why should new businesses get to leach off of the success of other people's good ideas? If a business is forced to shut down after a certain time then they would be forced to sell their assets at below market prices as they would be at a disadvantage, and could not wait for an appropriate price (what you describe in the OP is actually less fair as you imply that the assets should simply be given to newer businesses).

such a law would likely be abused in a massive way anyway

From evolution it is known that individuals must die so that the species could evolve. This is why we are not immortal. It is important for the older generations to die because otherwise they hold the resources for themselves and it becomes extremely difficult for new generations to become successful.

Same logic should be applied to corporate entities such as Coca Cola and what not. They should forcefully be exterminated after 100 years of existence, all their assets being redistributed between new firms and startups. My corpse will some day rot and turn into soil so that new life can use it for building blocks. Coca Cola, McDonalds, Ford and other big and long lived corporations should be forced to die in a similar manner.

Any takers?