Topic: thoughts on companies becoming too powerful? (Read 7053 times)

Company have big power what have to do but they always giants by government to allow how government rule, excatly with bitcoin want to build of cryptocurency transaction with easy and faster, many government want to give bad rule for bitcoin and try for banned bitcoin as transaction payment in the world.

No, they are still performing very well and bring great revenue to the country. There is no reason to stop them, such businesses often bring great value to the world, they will contribute to the government more tax money to build a better country.

When they say that there are companies that is being too powerful, I don’t see it that way at all as monopoly, I just feel that they work their way through it because for them to even get to that stage where they will be giving recognition by higher authority, they would have really worked hard for it and would have done lots of activities that would have given them the merit or the recognition by the high rules.

I believe that anyone who really wants to enjoy this monopoly being giving that is making people classify them as big companies, the person can also do it, it just depends on the level of push, not like the push of all these altcoins because I don’t see what they are pushing, but pushing of very notable people that we have in the world right now as role model.

Big companies have always risen in history and the answer has not been to break them up but let time to deal with them. There were bigger companies such as the East-India company that was a huge monster but nolonger exist today. Leave them to time and nature will take its course because if you try to break them up usually the vacuum is taken up by another soon after.

It's free and open market. If a company becomes big who should be the one to stop them? If we allow for the government to control and limit private companies where will you draw the line. Is a company with 100 million dollars in assets a big one, is it already too big? Should it be forced to stop expanding which may lead to destabilization and bankruptcy? Limiting the market from the outside is stupid, inefficient and unfair.

The only thing I dislike about big companies or conglomerates is monopoly. They seem to monopolize every area of their interest and that leads to dictating prices of goods, they have gimmicks to make small companies pack up and go. The only competition they have is the government because of the large capital involved to establish it and most times the government leaves that to them making them the bourgeois.

We need solid proof, evidence of the company being connected to illegal activities or else there won't be any chances of stopping it's operation. They run legally, abiding the laws, they are just bunch of money making machines and give great contributions to the society. They are also paying appropriate tax and nevertheless what on earth would be our weapon to bring down those giant companies even if they did not do something wrong at all. Also we are not sure if even you can find any holes to put down the company it will be stop, maybe they are helping the government or their CEO and leaders are bunch of frat dudes that cares for their members what e ver the cost. We are living in a world were justice is not served anymore, look at the world now, full of terrors.

The power of bigger company doesn't last for so long if people stop patronizing them. Sometimes company become broken because of new and latest technology where their company can't go with it. Sometimes Government also the reason why those bigger companies down,because they broke up the laws of the government. In another word everything has an end,popularity,power,value,technology,and also bigger companies suffer bankruptcy they will not stay dominance. Other company drop down while other rise.

behind those big companies are still people .  without people , there will be no company  . therfor people or shall i say we , are still powerful than compare to a company .  so  what if these companies are big and growing ? these companies are also helping the people around them and they arent selfish i think  . for example disney is still producing good films and facebook is still improving thier services in order for thier users to feel satisfied  .

Governments are not able to limit big corporations .Very often big corporation money are helping to choose  Governments.Money and politics is sad true
Very negative  influence of big corporation is corruption and creating monopol and dominance
Competition  wa always giving positive boost for modern economies
Sad true is that big corporation are paying less taxes in fact than small business
By my personal opinion small and medium business is root of healthy economy and that kind of business has to be somehow protected

The actual problem is that we the people are the ones that are allowing them to make use of us. Some people can't even make their own decisions and always waiting for someone to make the decision for them.

Yes, these companies are trying to take advantage of us, then why don't you stop making use of products that are released by these companies and make use of a competitor. If you continue to be making use of such products then you continue to give them control over and nothing else. They are all making use of their platform users as a means for making money.

I make use of such platforms like Facebook, but I don't really give real information about myself to Facebook, like giving my full name and I don't really give it full access on my device just like having access to my location and all that. And as for my device, I always switch off the GPS because I don't want bullshit like that.

Even Google is fond of all these trying to know what users are up to and all that. There are other competitors that are good, though one problem with some of their competitors is that they are not so good in offering some features that these companies are offering that's why people prefer to make use of these companies that are messing with their privacy.

Musk is just another rich capitalist that takes the value of what others create.  He gets far too much credit and hasn't really accomplished anything by himself.  He was born into a rich family and his father owned a gem mine that employed slaves.

Like this Facebook that you pointed out, it is because they are now too powerful that they think they can decide for government by creating a coin  that they proposed to be used globally without even first consulting same government first.

I have no personal issue with big companies, but they are not giving chance for the smaller ones to life their head up because of the monopoly that they even enjoy through government and this does not call for advancement of our youth, which is why you see some of them not being able to think out of the box because they are subject to working under a company that claims to be the biggest because of the power that the government itself has given to them. Being big is not the problem, but it become problem when hey start feeling too big.

That is actually fine, actually what american government is doing for Tesla and Spacex should be an example for the European governments as well. We need to move to electric cars and we need to do it asap, we need companies to stop polluting the world as well but that seems like not gonna happen anytime soon.

Tesla has brought a great electric car to reality and now a lot of people are using it, they had great marketing as well because it was on many TV shows and movies as a car that really rich people who want to show off used. If all other car companies have to deal with economical issues while making theirs that is the governments problem since everyone moving to electric cars would have better the country they are built, both in economy because they would sell a lot and make money but also in pollution wise as well.

Let me risk an answer

Maybe, Tesla is a monopolist (of sorts) primarily because it or its buyers in the US are massively subsidized by the American government, while other companies (read, from Europe and Japan) trying to make electric cars have to face the harsh economic reality without the recourse to government financial support in the form of tax reductions or direct subsidies to the buyers of these cars?

And the harsh reality is that such cars are very expensive in terms of both production and exploitation, especially if we consider all relevant expenses, both direct and indirect costs as well as delayed costs, i.e. the ones that you incur when you are getting rid of your old electric car or its worn-out parts such as batteries, for example (think nuclear power here with its quite devastating environmental impact many years after a nuclear power station is decommissioned)

In each country, there should be an antitrust committee, which should ensure that large monopolies do not form in one industry. If antitrust laws are respected, the state is no longer entitled to intervene in private business. Everyone should have their own rights and obligations. You cannot arbitrarily destroy a certain business solely on the basis that it has been too successful.

I think it depends on how big you get but also what you provide as well. Like for example apple is producing phones and laptops but that helps competition, look at Samsung for now and they are improving as well however its not enough, all other phone companies can't even reach to those levels without getting a huge sums of money to put into R&D help from government or some private investor.

Yet, look at teals and SpaceX, they have actually improved the world a whole lot, they are almost like a monopoly when it comes to electric cars, all other old car companies are trying their best but they never really put something as good as Tesla, plus look at SpaceX dudes literally managed to build rockets that can be reused and made it super cheap for space travel thanks to government loans. So as long as its helpful to humanity its good but if its creating unnecessary competition than its useless.

It is definitely a bad thing. The best example is USA as a whole, it has become a wheel of money from government to huge companies and it will never ever stop. The military machine, almost all of of tax money goes to military spendings, then the military companies pay ( lobby) to politicians to get funding next year.

If something called as big company means they follow all the rules of their jurisdiction where they are located and also they need to follow other country laws if their domain need to stay a on their country so it means those companies you were mentioned doesn't violate any laws of the government so they will not stop any activities from them but it will hinder the growth of companies from their native if big companies become Monopoly on their country so they need to have some sort of limit for them.

It is not even 10% controlling 90% of the wealth in the world, it is 1% that controls the 90% of the wealth, when you make it 10% of the population (the richest 10) that moves to around 96% of all wealth, so basically 90% of poorest controls only 4% (with a bit leftover, it was like 4.65% or something) which is really a shame because it shows how much the wealth inequality is and how bad it is going considering that was less in the past, which means it could very well be 1% controlling 95%+ very soon if there is nothing done about it.

By the way, this 1% richest is not just humans, some companies are included in that as well and that means one company can make more money than plenty of nations, apple for example was as big as 10+ countries wealth at one point, that is something we have to end eventually.

It is only government that can really help in this situation because they are the ones that keep empowering these big companies more, and funny as it may stand, it is still government loan that some of them used to become that powerful, no one is saying we don’t need large companies, because to really handle the supply and economy of a country successfully, we really need big time players, but whatever services or products that they sell should be in such a way that they will not be the only ones that is imposed on people, there is need to actually give these smaller companies too the ability to expand and thrive.

It is better those smaller companies loose to competition than loose to monopoly, it could really be disheartening when they cannot test their ability.

Every individual has his own speculations but with this centralized coin with the big companies behind it I don't think it should be banned because at least the government will get tax from it like you said. With such good regulation that might occur and be applied I think every coin has the same chance to get better.

Regulation is not part of the plan in cryptocurrency development just that governments are looking for a way to regulate it and it is not in the interest of cryptocurrency but the governments will always find a way to tax it. Bitcoin is decentralized and without governments involvement, it has worked fine and it can stand as money because it is not owned by any person or country and it gives the power of ownership to the society. Libra as centralized coins could have not been as good as Bitcoin.

There are already antitrust laws in most countries that if applied will disband such monopolies, but the politicians have no reason to take action since they are probably bought by those corporations and also because they are probably using those corporations to advance their own interests, this is especially true for the tech giants like Google and Facebook that are buying any other company that seems to go somewhere, in my opinion Google and Facebook should be broken up in at least 10 different corporations and should not be allowed to merge again.

I hate it too. Only where I live it happens more to small cafes and restaurants rather than to retail stores. I've seen many times like small places with good and not pricey food disappear being replaced by big fast food chains. I don't know why most people prefer eating junk food ruining their health, instead of eating healthy food for the same price, but that's how it is, and that's why big fast food chains win the competition. Nevertheless, I'd rather cook for myself than live in a country with regulated economy where those small cafes I love so much were subsidized by the government. Overall, regulated economy has more disadvantages than advantages imo.

No, the regulation will not be the problem, because we dealing with a centralized organization and these organizations has to adhere to government laws and regulations or they will be forced to close their doors. It becomes a problem when these large organizations starts to influence the local reserve currencies value.

It is still illegal to create your own "private" currency in most countries and in the USA they define Crypto currencies as a commodity and not a currency.     

That is a real issue, these big chains will disrupt small businesses and unfortunately there is no clear rule to protect those small enterprises, the big chains attract people with big offers that the small business cannot afford and then when they close down due to losses as there wont be any customers, then the big chain will have the monopoly over that product and then increase their prices as there is no competition. 

I think thats decision to ban libra is totally right. If every big company will have own currency it will be hard to regulate

I don't have any problem as long as these companies stay away from politics. But nowadays, they are interfering in politics and if things go on like this in due course the corporations may decide who will become the next POTUS. Let's take the example of two of these corporations - Google and Facebook.

Google News is being used by tens of millions of people everyday and they give a clear preference to news from leftist trash such as Vox and The Washington Post. You won't find many articles from right-wing sources such as Fox News and Breitbart.  The same with FB as well. Many of the left-wing videos uploaded to FB become viral with active support from the FB staff, while anything remotely related to the right is deleted in quicktime. A lot is being said about the interference by Russia in the American elections. But what about the interference by Google and FB?

I'm not sure if there is such a thing as that governments shouldn't be allowed to interfere with their business. Governments make the rules and they can break or bend them at any time if they so wish.

Shell in Nigeria is an example of how a large corporation abuses its power. The environmental impact of all the oil leaks is mind blowing. It's purely their money that stimulates the government there to not stop them.

I really wish the Nigerian government would step in and put a stop to it, but they need the money from Shell, and then we shouldn't forget the bribes that makes high ranked politicians look away.

If the government spots a monopoly they will have to act according to their laws to stop these companies from controlling the market or becoming too powerful that may look like a threat to them. What you have said about of companies involving in politics may be true since most of them have a bigger control of the market with their exposure in the public.

There is no conflict of interest between the companies and the government. No matter how much big the company is, there is no way that could hurt the government or take over the government. As long as the companies follow the local rules and pay taxes, they are good to go and keep their business operational in a massive level.

I think companies should have a limitation on how big they can get without too much politics involved.
Unfortunately these companies getting super big becomes bigger than politics, what can a politician do about these places.

Let's look at facebook, they are obviously using Ireland as tax haven and they are not paying as much tax as they should on where they are actually based which is California and they are monitoring everyone around the world collecting all of their private data and they got punished for it but don't care since 5 billion is nothing to them and they are now building a currency to actually make people use it instead of global fiat currencies.

How do you really stop it as a politician, how do you stop them as a government, if you try to close them, they will just move to another country simple as that.

Having what Donald Trump says weeks ago against Facebook coin Libra and also to bitcoin I think supremacy can’t be for this companies eve how big they’re market is.their power is limited so it’s not now that they can reign let’s see in the future if this will be available for them.and besides  what we need from them Is support like buying stocks inside our market and not just a market outside cryptocurrency

We're at a stage already where companies being very large do demand certain perks from the side of the governments and threaten to leave if their demands aren't met. Governments will in most cases give their okay because they don't really have a choice.

Only when you form a threat to their system they might actually try to combat your business model. We haven't really had a clear example of such a company in the last couple of decades, but we do have it now with Facebook. In that regard, it's going to be interesting how far Facebook comes with its Libra. It's everything but certain that it will ever see the light.

It is already happening in some countries, I was in South Africa of recent and had a discussion with a friend of mine, and he made reference to this country called Nigeria, and he said is should look at how their company has virtually bought over so many things over there like DSTV and some other industry which they pay the government some tokens and settle some people in authority to be able to be the only provider of such service there.

This is why many of their indigenous companies that keeps trying to rise is being killed and I learnt that there was supposed to be a company from their country that would really compete with them big time, but was killed because of the monopoly of the DSTV, that is really not good because when you have different companies, it will end up creating more business opportunities.

Exactly what goes on in the part of the world where I come from, government is totally indifferent to the bad sides monopoly can cause, rather all they are concerned with, is how important this big companies can be to them, and what they inturn would benefit through taxes and lending money from such companies.

Capitalism is a system I do not encourage, it only makes the rich richer and the poor, poorer.
I think something must be done to stop this capitalist monopoly or else they'll succeed in eliminating all forms of competition, which will kick many establishments out of business.

Things are not that easy

Simply put, they don't work that way. One does not simply create employment and puts "some infrastructures" in place, there should be an economic reason (still better in plural) for that, something which makes the effort economically viable. Otherwise, it is just another, more concealed and less obvious form of subsidizing local population (read, giving out free money). You don't just take 600 million dollars and create a project. You should first come up with an idea of the project, and if it is worth the money, then you can ask for dough

When he talked about such amount of money to alleviate poverty, I believe that he is not also talking of distributing the money because if it were to be that, that would not even solve poverty level in a state. I don’t know how through that figure is. But if that was to be true, do you know what they would be generating in an hour, it means they would be generating like $600 million dollars in an hour, and imagine what this amount of money could create as project.

One of the ways to eliminate poverty in a locality is to create system that would create employment and also put some infrastructures in place, and talking of alleviating poverty also, for their money to really have effect, they need to go to countries like Africa where $10 million dollars alone would do a whole lot of project there.

If things were that easy

You can't alleviate poverty by giving out money as that will only make the situation with poverty worse. In fact, it will only aggravate it dramatically. The companies don't sit on their wealth as many seem to implicitly assume. All this wealth exists in the form of capital which creates added value, and that makes people's lives better. Now you basically suggest to take part of this newly created value and redistribute it in some way. Sounds familiar, huh? If not, what makes you think that this redistribution is actually going to help people or help them better if it didn't happen and companies would be free to use all of their income as they see most appropriate (read, most effective)?

Well speaking in this context, I would say that more than 80% of the whole world’s wealth is with few people ruling these companies and this is one reason of the huge income gap. You need to have policies that implies progressive taxation as a result of which the money that is generated by these companies will be taxed. Facebook creates more than $10 million per minute. This is a whopping amount that could be used to alleviate poverty in the locality.

Things are a bit different in this day and age. Your assumption would be 100% correct for the pre-Internet era, but today it is a completely different story. As even this forum clearly shows, you can foster useful connections and build solid reputation from ground up without having to be born into wealth

This is in striking contrast with what we had before the Internet came when you really couldn't lift yourself out of poverty if you didn't have proper connections which you obviously hadn't for being born into poverty. Though I agree that you should rather work smart instead of working hard (that kinda goes without saying)

But isn't it exactly what the Internet is about, i.e. about being smart?

You fail to realize that the system is totally broken.  Hard work isn't going to magically lift you out of poverty.  You need solid connections that poor people usually do not have.  Becoming an entrepreneur just means exploiting workers like the rest of capitalists do and then you are contributing to the problem.

You can always try to do something about it instead of complaining about how the rich elite only get richer and governments only work against you. Complaining doesn't increase your wealth, becoming an entrepreneur does.

An uncle of mine complains about this all the time, and this for years now. No matter how much I try to convince him to get off his lazy ass, he still thinks that the rich elite and governments should make an effort to change things.

We have decades of history proving that the elite will not hand you over free money, and governments will not do anything to change either. It's YOU that needs to change, not the rich elite or governments. This is how the poor stays poor.

I guess he is actually looking at the disadvantage part of giving these companies too much power, because when the have too much power, they also have too much money to manipulate anything that they like which some of them would definitely affect the future of the younger ones. In my country, we have some companies like that, and when any young person tries to compete with them, they will either use the power and the money they have to cause influence that would make them not to thrive.

Look at Facebook, they started buying everything over just to have that monopoly, and after they got it, the next thing that came to their mind is to create a global currency which indirectly means they are trying to take over the financial control of the government that made them also.

As long as it gives and satisfies the needs of the people in terms of entertainment then why should it be broken up.
They are doing their purposes, so it should exist as long as we want it to exist. It doesn't really affect our lives and those employees of companies that have been bought. It's their business if they wanted to buy those companies that oppose them, it's part of being intellectual. The purpose for you that's why they're still existing is for entertainment so you should focus on that.

Situation is same almost all over the world, such big companies always trying to make as much profit as possible, and they look at people mostly as consumables. Why big company as Apple has manufacturing facilities in China? Because there is cheap work force, probably lower taxes and they do not have to worry too much about human rights. I watched some documentaries about how Apple work in China, and I can only say that most of animals in USA has better conditions than these workers in China.

The rich are rich because they take 90% of money in their pockets, and we have situation where 10% of people control around 90% world wealth. We can say that 90% or human population serve them and their interests. It is in their interest that we stay poor and dependent on them, so they can control us more easily.

Your right . thats also what im thinking about but i believe there are still some companies that aims to help people . some of their earned profits will go to the charities , churches and those people or places that have been destructed by natural calamities  .

 if these kind of companies are becoming powerful then id say its good . its good for them and its also good for us  but if those selfish companies are becoming powerful then that is threatining  .

They should think about us since we are the one they are giving their service.

It is true though that they don't care what they care is the service, the product they are giving to people since if there will be a lot of people disappointed about the product, it will all be posted in the social media and that would destroy their face as a company.

Food for thought.
Purposely typo so that nobody can attack me for spreading lie.

I don't think the government will disband the hectacorn company, a company as big as Facebook or Disney will be a new revenue for the country. They provide international services where all the money will go to that big company, indirectly there will be a flow of money coming from other countries to the countries of that two companies. Even the government should maintain and support companies like this, if they forbid maybe it will be a stupid government.


Indeed we are giving power to both companies, but are we able to stop using the services of the two companies. Look at the many people in the world who depend on their services, they provide services with a win-win system. They need us and we need them, so even if you invite all people in the world not to use the services of the two companies, surely they will not care about you. Well that's because Facebook and Disney have had a big influence on the economy, not just the economy of their country but the world economy.

That's an intricate and massively complicated issue

If someone (or something) more powerful dissolves some entity less powerful, does it always mean that the former becomes even more powerful (read, evil)? For example, in 1911 the US government divided the American Standard Oil (of the Rockefeller fame) into 34 (or so) separate companies effectively turning them into competing entities. Was that a bad act, and did the American government thus become more powerful? Even if it did, was that power accumulation a bad thing for the common good over the long run?

Broken up by the government? So you want someone more powerful to break them up? You see here is the main problem. Without even realizing you are being reliable on someone more powerful to disintegrate someone less powerful.
Facebook and Disney does not have any power over us. It is us who are giving them the power and it is us united who can take away everything from them. Image if everyone stopped using facebook. What do you think will happen to it?

I still think that the government is the biggest power in this world, big companies like Facebook, Microsoft and so on will obey the rules applied by the government, for example when the US vs China trade war, and the US government bans all Chinese products coming, then Facebook will follow that rules, so Products from China like Huawei cannot get the latest version from Facebook anymore. that is an example from government power. You don't need to worry about that

I guess we should also add Microsoft to the list

And probably put it at the very top of it as they have arguably reinvented the entire idea of stifling competition by adding a whole new dimension to it while utilizing the complete spectrum of tools starting from outright stealing (DOS operating system seems to be the most conspicuous example) and ending with such sophisticated methods as allegedly embracing an open technology or standard and then twisting it in such a way that no one can any longer use it without actually using Microsoft's version of it. And they still got off pretty cheap in the end

Well that's undeniable, all these companies are obeying the law paying taxes and when doing wrong get fined also they paid it. That's the nature of free market but the disadvantages might be some people out there who are still small scale companies trying to compete with all these big boys will definitely have a hard time.

These companies are operating in a country, where the free market is practiced, as long as it is legal and they pay the right taxes, you are allowed to expand your business, it's actually good for countries to allow this to happen because it means employment and revenue through taxes, I don't see any disadvantages, you did not specify either what's the disadvantages.

It seems to me that first of all we ourselves must take care of ourselves, because no company thinks about people.  First of all, every industrial giant or other company thinks of superprofits, and not in order to make this world a little better.  Therefore, you should not worry about anything Huawei or Apple.

If it happened to Standard Oil and AT&T then I don't see any reason why it shouldn't happen to tech giants. I don't know about the current laws in the US where these companies are registered is but there should be enough outrage for the government to really put its thumb on it.

The thing is, should the US govt do it and risk having this sector out-competed by companies from countries that don't have such restrictions? For example everyone probably heard about Huawei and its connections with the Chinese government. Say you think Apple is to large, should you allow it to be handicapped, which would only favor Huawei?


I think in the case of social media giants, the only things that really pisses off people is their ideological biases and handling of data. Otherwise these people had been very eager to use and share their info with these companies at the start.

Michael Crichton, the author of the original book Jurassic Park, wrote other works which became full production films in theaters. One of his books entitled Rising Sun spawned a movie starring Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes, touching upon topics related to OP's post in terms of global markets and american anti trust laws.

Crichton's approach was to compare large japanese conglomerates like matsushita with american corporations of the day. Japan, china and countless other countries have no laws against corporations becoming too large or powerful, allowing them to grow into massive private sector entities dwarfing american analogues which can be somewhat growth restricted via contrast.

There's a question as to whether nations like the US which sometimes adhere to anti-trust laws which were created before global markets existed can compete on a global scale. In china we currently see their government throwing free money at business sectors in an effort to give their own private sector an advantage over competition. In america we often see the opposite with state based regulation hiking taxes and working to reduce any advantages native business might enjoy. Over the long term, this could prove to be self destructive in terms of limiting sector growth in an era where foreign nations employ the polar opposite policy.

Precedents consumers commonly object to are not necessarily related to the size of companies. Rather increasingly common cases of predatory business practices associated with consolidated markets, price fixing and other negative trends.

Large Monopolies are just part of a healthy open economy, it becomes unhealthy when these Monopolies dominate the market. There are still good competition for Disney and also Facebook and you have large communication companies in other countries that are doing very well in their own respective countries.

I think the healthiest environment occur when you have a situation like Crypto currencies, where you have 1000s of Alt coins that are competing for the same market without the restriction from large conglomerates killing or buying out the competition. 

the reason is simple if the company is becoming developing technical and also the economic situation is improving but when we need to be regulated properly because sometime it will go wrong so that I think if everyone doing their work properly then it will be the best for everything

The government should not interfere as long as the company still providing their responsibilities inside their jurisdiction, it's a must that for any company to pay the right compensation and taxes that's been asked by the government, there's nothing to do with growing their business as long as they are not
doing any illegal  things around the government jurisdictions.

I think there is a reason why there was monopoly ban was put in USA but that was for the monopoly they had at that time, I think it is not working for the ones we have right now. It was created to stop all monopolies that existed but wasn't created to stop any future ones. We have seen apple go as high as 1 trillion dollar market cap and nobody thinks they are monopoly for some reason, there was Samsung and other phone manufacturers, there was all windows computers and that is why apple went by without trouble to all the way to 1 trillion dollars. That is way more than any company should reach.

I think even with all the inflation since the early monopoly days, we should still not reach 1 trillion dollars. All these huge companies should be divided into multiple companies to fix the problem. Like apple phone and apple pc should be two different company just to give an example.

No, the government should not interfere. They are responsible for them to pay their honest-to-goodness tax dues, to make sure that the employees are well compensated and protected, to see to it that the business declares everything openly, to propagate healthy competition despite bullish growth of some, and so on. The government is not even good at managing their very own backyard, they should not muddle with other private affairs.

To avoid monopoly the government should do something so the small company could grow and make a healthy market condition, but some countries just let it be as long as it is not a vital part for the country, but this could led to the monopoly system which is jot too good for other investors

No one should be a super power even the governments. Let's discuss on business levels, only the distributed power based system will lead for more innovations and when there will be a continuous innovation which will make the environment a versatile one.

When a company assumes themselves as a super power, they may take stupid decisions out of over confident which may write their end chapters. One good example is Nokia, they assumes themselves as a leader in mobile manufacturing sector hence they decided no need of adopting android which led their collapse.

Demand/competition is the mother of innovation but they assume being a super giant is enough for growing further. Time will answer them.

One country can make it happen.
Look at North Korea and China. If their government dont want to be part with anything with it then it can happen.

The problem would be if your government wants it to happen and they are taking part or being given compensation for it.
Democracy mostly is the problem. People are being given too much power losing the integrity of one country.
There should still be limits with it.
Facebook and other social media are already eating a lot of people brains.

not ethical if disturbed by the government because of the success of a media. what should be done is to provide support for both parties, but if it has alluded to each other's interests the government has the right to take action against certain media. I think as long as a media does not make its own opinion for the willingness of one party there is no government matter limiting a media if there is no problem if it is only popularity.

When private companies become too powerful it has it advantages and disadvantages. Aside growing into monopoly and concentrating public resources in one place; their powerful growth can also make a lazy government become active and also born more active competitor for development of he economy. When they should be broken is when they become more powerful and influencing public decisions for self, than, the government can interface aside that, they should be supported.

Government allows monopoly because no one is entering in the market that much but I agree there must be a greater support to the small entrepreneurs because usually they are paying the right taxes compare to big companies. Imagine a top company did not pay tax because of so many exceptions. Well, if they grow a lot then they can really control one market. 

Broken by whom? I know this Dangote you talked about here, I think he is the richest man in Africa and from Nigeria if I am right, and Dangote is like God even being worshiped by the government in his country. This same people you are inviting to break him up, are they still not the same people that is empowering him by giving him a monopoly power?

His monopolistic power is the one making him to run virtually every business found in the country, he initially wanted to try the same in Ghana too, but I trust Ghana, they respected him and allowed him to run his business, but never gave him that monopolistic power to run all their business over there, and I think I only know of his cement business in Ghana if I am right, anyway, his power is only limited to Africa, and he cannot try such in Europe.

of course yes. For technology businesses, that will be certain, for example, facebook.
Facebook currently holds more than 2 billion personal data worldwide and they are planning to set up Libra in the crypto market (where numerous personal data are sold a lot at very cheap prices).
American governments should really restrain businesses like this, because when it grows too big, we don't know what they can do in our world.

Governments across the world has one company or another that control it and I think those in leadership positions in various countries understand this and that why they cannot ban such companies. Facebook libra coins has exposed those type of powerful companies to us. I have been following the testimony of Macus throughout last week and you can see how confident he was in saying that they are going to meet of with the requirements of the laws in Libra louch. This is a coins that is going to be used as money and governments know what it means but they cannot do much to ban them because of how powerful they are.

I would not advise that the government them up because they still contribute to the major reason why the economy of their country is booming, and whatever makes the government take any negative action against them, it will not only affect them, but also affect the economy of such country too.

What I would just advise them to do is to out a check on them, it is because of this power they are having that made Facebook to be bold enough to want to create a coin that he proposes they use globally, Libra coin would have just been limited to just their platform use, but to the extent of stretching it out to the extent of people thinking Facebook is trying to build a nations, I think there is really need for the government to thoroughly checkmate them.

I think as long as they are doing things according to the rules and not hurting anyone and at the same time holding some trust funds for the underprivileged.
They are assets for us.
They reached their from their own will.
They had a idea and they developed it into a company, it all started from scratch.
The ones you are talking about aren't the ones that was handled by family to family .
They came out from dirt.
I think .. they deserve every right to be supreme as long as they don't break the rules.

I don't really mind it if they do not do anything bad to be honest. For example, back in the day standard oil was the biggest oil company in the world and they used this to change the pricing of oil to cheapest possible in one place making a big loss but then all other oil places went bankrupt couldn't fight with their pricing and then standard oil became monopoly of that place and spiked up the prices starting to make profit.

Hence, if you do bad things with your monopoly then I would say they are too powerful. However Disney literally gave us the biggest movie of all time with their purchase of Marvel, if you are going to become media giant and offer us great service then you are just becoming big because you deserve so. If you are like standard oil then you are too powerful, if you become like Disney then you deserve it.

Large giants think only about profits in the market.In any case, any company or government seeks a monopoly in any sphere.I hope very soon the social company Facebook,after creating its own coin,will become a mega monopolist.

The only reason they have grown so big in the first place is government regulation, e.g. IP protections. Now you want even more government? Who's to decide, and what should be the threshold for a company after which it should be broken up? Maybe it would be easier to look at the factors which led to the companies growing so big in the first place? Food for thought.

Honestly, I wouldn't be too worried about it. I mean, if you think about it, huge companies while they make a huge impact on the world economy, they are still in a way controlled by the government because of the by-laws, taxes, corruption(this is like the main reason if it wasn't obvious enough). Companies can rise all they want, but they are gonna end up shattered because of a billion reasons and we dont have to worry about it.

Why should it be dissolved? I think that with them they will create a big motivation for competitors who will continue to improve the quality of their projects. The company is very strong that is a proof of the hard work so far and I'm not sure they will violate all government rules or be immune from the law, because they become big and strong because they are very disciplined.

Of course, it won't be wise for those companies to be allowed to be too powerful. It will lead to abuse. The people will suffer it. Like, when those too-powerful companies happens to break a certain law or right, it becomes too hard to bring them to book. That being said, government cannot prevent the big companies from getting more powerful, but proper and thorough checks and balances can help prevent abuse of power.

Do not mix the governments with the big multinational companies. Both are different and are not inter-related to each other. Government is not threaten by these companies and therefore they is no point for government to close these companies. Rather these companies gives good amount of taxes and employment to the nation, and hence they are good for the government and country

Stagnant wage is fine mate as long as the government does not debase the currency (or ceteris paribus). The problem is within the inflation, plus about the taxation policy, corporate policy (e.g., too much wage for C-level officers), immigration policy, etc.

Perhaps Americans should listen more to Milton Friedman instead of Bernie Sanders.

break big businesses? that is not because it harms the economies of many countries. But I think the government should intervene in the expansion of these large businesses.
Because when they collapse, the economy will be greatly affected. therefore, should not be trusted in any large enterprise, we should still limit its greatness.

OP, this has been going on for many decades, and from my reading of stock market history this consolidation actually used to be much worse--which is why there are anti-monopoly laws in the US nowadays.

I'm aware of what Disney is doing, but I've been watching my state hospitals consolidate and big pharmaceutical companies, and pharmacy chains merging with insurance companies.  I'm not sure if all of this is good for society as a whole, but I bet it's really good for those businesses.

However, competition is good and I don't think we're going to see the end of that anytime soon.  The only thing I really hate is how big chains (retail, mostly) have put local mom-and-pop stores out of business.  I think that's only going to get worse, unfortunately.

The worrying thing is that productivity has constantly been increasing but wages have remained stagnant.  People in America made much more money in the 60s and 70s working a normal job and housing, healthcare, and education was a lot cheaper.

I agree. all must comply with government policies. and they must obey the regulations set by the government. permits, taxes must be clear, if they are detrimental to the state, they must face the law. so don't worry if they control the country

Hmmmmm, I guess that the government can step in to these large companies if they have been found something illegal, involved into an alarming issue or they don't pay taxes. But as long as they are complying to the government rules and regulations, they won't be touched.

The government earns through these large companies and it's usual to support these businesses as long as they have acquired licenses and they have permit to operate.

And when they do have the money to do what ever they want, what does that result to? Power of course. The like of Facebook, google etc didn't start building their empire on power they starter from acquiring wealth (money) then used that money to acquire power.


Don't know how the government of your country operate but ours don't give a damn instead they assist the big companies in the state to acquire more power as far they're benefiting from the companies. A popular example is the Dangote Group company. That company technically runs the country and are about take control of the main source of income by building private refinery. I'm of the suggestion these big companies should be broken up so we can have even distribution of power.

They are supported by the government as long as they are paying correct taxes and following the laws, we have nothing to worry about because they are not that dominant and they not solely control the market. A lot of competitors in the market, they are just making a good product that’s why they are still on top. They are not that powerful though, they only have the money.

What's the sense? They are private sectors which also have their own specific rights. Besides, as long as such companies are paying the appropriate taxes based on their net profit then there's should be no issue at all. If you are worrying that maybe someday these companies might become even bigger and rule over the US (for example) then stop because it is impossible to overpower the government. Yes! They can monopolize the field of their expertise but that's it, in the end they are all countrymen which are all under government's authority.

It is called economies of scale. The more you produce, the cheaper it becomes.

Generally, people don't have to worry about this monopoly power, because the government has antitrust law to "prevent" bad things to happen.

Yes the government could force divestment if these companies becomes too big.

One companies will eventually conquer them all if there's no competition. But when that happens, usually a new start-up show up and start disrupting the business, like what happened to Nokia. I think that's just how nature works.

I don't think some companies has too much power over me when I can decide whether I use their product or not. I use my phone not because some companies urged me to buy it.

The companies rules the citizen or the government rules the population. However there is not much of difference, the government tries to keep the population under their control creating needs for them while the big giants just create way to relieve their stress generated. This way there is always a mutual connectivity that makes both to be the same but the monopoly being shown in a different way.

If the company in question is doing more harm to the competition in the market than good, then I think the government can step in to break it down. Just like what happened to Microsoft. I also agree that Facebook has grown too much and if Libra pushed through, they will be uncontrollable.

It's cyclical, we break one company and then it will spawn more, that's how it works. I know everyone hates monopoly or capitalism, but it can help innovation as well.

@hatshepsut93 -  I can relate to your argument, I was once part of the Intel families back then late 90'-to early 00's. yes we have monopolised the CPU's, even garnering 80%-90% of the market back then. But then competition with AMD is good early until they caught up with us, pushing us to the brink and we re invent and re innovate. Monopoly won't last forever and as soon as competition started to catch up with you, then you need to adjust otherwise you won't stay on top.

I've heard the argument quite a few times, and I don't think it's an invalid one. But what's the alternative? You break up the companies and then bigger ones acquire as many as they can, and we are back at square one. This is to be expected with late-stage capitalism, and it's not necessarily too harmful anyways. As long as there are a "few" giants, the market is still somewhat "free". I'm sure if these tried to join the government would hop in, but there is really no need to disrupt the economy right now. It may not sound optimal, but it's working.

Often times the companies become so big because of the government in the first place - lobbying and excess regulations are very good ways to kill competition. On a totally free market, monopolies still can happen, but they don't last forever. For example, right now AMD becomes very popular on the CPU market, while Intel struggles to make stronger products, while historically AMD was the underdog of that market. This happened without any government intervention.

Also companies may be powerful, but they are not powerful in the same way that governments are - you are totally free to not use Facebook and Google, but government can brake into your house if it wanted to, and there's nothing you can do, so I'm not too concerned about companies.

Government cant do anything that they do want specially to this big companies.They know on what they do capable of, these companies know how to play the game that's why we cant see that they cant make any immediate action against them.Lets see on what would happen next.

Have you reverse engineered the entire process on how these companies has become this huge and powerful, if you understand those basic process you can very well avoid those companies so that their power will vanish in a matter of years, in short you can have many examples of companies who were once powerful gone down to dust, just look at the fate of Nokia, Kodak etc, they are only as powerful as long as people are using their service and if everyone starts avoiding their service they are done for good  .

I am generally against monopoly. Because it is not good. If there is a technical competition, we will all only benefit from it. And when a big corporation starts dictating its rule to me, I can only say that in the end we will be in bad hands. I think the governments of all the big ones are not that stupid and will try to destroy this monopoly, but that costs us the privile sphere

As far as I know there has been one is recent memory wherein a government step up and "broke" a company because of monopoly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.

So we have a precedent already, but we have to understand that this will be a long and lengthy battle. And the irony here is that the one who benefited from all of this is the same company that we thought right now has a complete monopoly like Google and Facebook.

I think its about the law of the country in which they are domiciled and the country in which the business they are buying is also located and the type of business that is to be bought. There are laws especially in Europe though that guides against Companies monopoly i.e for merger or acquisition to happen, it needs to be approved by the regulatory body operating in the capital market who then evaluates the aftermath of such relationship. For Facebook now, I think since it has gone public, it would become a little bit difficult to have such type acquisitions without being checked but if the company can prove that such acquisition would make them better off and not being too 'powerful', there is nothing that would likely stop it.

Disney has become the media giant and has been on a spending spree for the last decade buying up different ips.

Facebook has been buying up all their competition and is the dominant social media company and nothing else can compete with it.

Companies become so big and they have enormous power over us, do you think companies like this should be broken up by the government or be allowed to reign supreme?