Anti-Corporate Movement
This community is the first one on lemmy of its kind. It sits between the idea of anarchism/anti-capitalism and left leaning economic policy.
Our goal is to make people aware of the dangers of corporate control, its influence on governments and people as well as the small but steady abrasion of empathy around the world indirectly caused by it.
Current topics this includes but is not limited to:
- Meta's entry into the fediverse
- Game companies putting gambling mechanics in childrens games
- Embracer groups buyout and closing of smaller game studios
- IP trolls destroying small companies and keeping progress back for profit
Feel free to debate this but beware, corporate rhetoric is not welcome here. If you have arguments, bring them on. If its rhetoric trying to defend the evil actions of corporations, we will know and you will go.
Our declared goal so far is to have all companies and individuals worldwide capped at 999 mil USD in all assets, including ownership of other companies, sister companies and marital assets. The reason for this is that companies (and individuals) are not supposed to resemble small(?) countries with a single leader(-board) and shareholder primacy. Thats why we feel like they must be kept in check indefinitely.
But companies will just wander off The argument that large companies will just wander off is valid, which we embrace. We dont need microsoft, apple, google, amazon and other trillion dollar companies. There are small competitors being kept small and driven into brankruptcy by anti competitive behavior of these giants or simply bought up and closed. If starbucks left tomorrow, we would not have an issue with this.
But then we have x little microsofts that all belong to the same person(s) If in fact nobody was allowed to accumulate more than 999 mil in assets, they would not be able to own all these. And like defending agains burglary, it is not about complete defence but time and effort. You only have to keep the thief occupied long enough for them to be caught, give up or make a mistake.
But these giants have tons of IP which would then limit our growth Thats another topic we must touch on. We will (only this one time) take a page out of russias playbook and demand that IP of non complying companies (assets over 999 mil USD) will be declared invalid, which opens them up to be copied.
But then they will "live" in one country that doesnt accept this Correct, and they should be taken into custody the moment they enter the airspace of a country that supports this act.
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Sadly, this is a common misconception. Capitalism has no inherent benefits in terms of innovation. The people innovating innovate no more or less because they are pitted against each other. The reason people are able to innovate is because they have education and expertise. It is pretty clear that, given the chance, even more people would try and innovate on stuff they like. That isnt the case because they would need to find a job in the field first and even if they were able to do it, capitalists would claim it for them. I can iterate on this for hours but the fact stands that the innovation of capitalism is a myth.
Innovation is needed for stuff nobody likes too, but that aside: People would innovate on stuff they like, but would they (and could they) organize the labor of thousands of people necessary to turn their innovation into real industrial production? Smartphones were built by passionate people with a vision, but the factories pumping out millions of them a year were built and staffed because there was money to be made. So-called capitalist innovation is a description of the fact not that capitalism encourages technological progress, but that capitalism provides a way for said progress to spread throughout society in a way no other economic system does.
Could a university, govt, charity, or any other non-profit organisation organise the labour of thousands of people?
Yes.
Yes, now which of those do you think would be a good model to build a post-capitalist economy around? I'll build my counterargument around that.
Let's go with govt since that covers lots of projects.
Shall we start with the Manhattan project as an example of this?