[tjs8rj]

In today’s world is it actually in our best interest to have the government break up large organizations? Or is that the worse of 2 evils?

The state derives a lot of its power globally from wealth, influence, military power (funded by wealth). The state is only as powerful as it is - and only as capable as it is at promoting American interests in the world because it has many of the biggest winner-take-all corporations in its jurisdiction.

A world where it breaks them up while China keeps them is probably a world where China is far more powerful than the US

The meta as a state today is to cultivate as much wealth and power as possible by encouraging super corporations

[snowwrestler]

Overall national wealth and power shrink under monopoly super corporations, that is the reason it is a matter of public policy in the first place. If you go back and review the major antitrust actions of the 20th century, each one was followed by an explosion of market-creating innovation: Standard Oil, Bell Telephone, even Microsoft. Look even further back, and many national economies were organized around a few state-sponsored monopolies e.g. the East India Company. They all lost ground to economies with more numerous and competitive companies, most notably the U.S.

[tjs8rj]

Really? 20 mid sized Googles is better for US power than 1 mega Google dominating the planet? Repeat for any corporation.

Breaking these megacorps benefits little guys like you and me, but I doubt it benefits state power on the global stage

[ToucanLoucan]

> In today’s world is it actually in our best interest to have the government break up large organizations?

I genuinely struggle to think of a social ill we're currently facing that isn't down in one way or another to some mega-entity acting against the public interest with no fears of reprisal because it is "too big to fail."

> A world where it breaks them up while China keeps them is probably a world where China is far more powerful than the US

The US has demonstrated thoroughly it cannot and is not interested in preventing the ascent of a Chinese superpower, simply from the fact that, if you believe them at face value, the current ruling party and administration are absolutely ripping the walls out from the U.S. Government largely to prevent that exact phenomenon, and have utterly failed to do so. And, in their ineptitude, have in fact both made the United States a global embarrassment and left tons of soft power just sitting on the damn table for China to pick up.

> A world where it breaks them up while China keeps them is probably a world where China is far more powerful than the US

... but we have a lot of these supposed super-corporations. The problem is the United States, contrary to the ramblings of numerous chronically online people, does not actually use it's authority. Those corporations are in fact far more worried about accessing China's market than ours, because we don't regulate and they do, and there's far more Chinese consumers than American ones.

Add to it America's consumers are already strip-mined to the studs and China's middle class is growing... I mean. It's just full steam ahead on American irrelevance.

I think the real lesson is that when you're the big player already benefiting from global free trade in virtually every single way, laying tariffs on everything and sabotaging foreign investment in your own country is... well. Fucking stupid?

[Schiendelman]

You can't come up with any social ills caused by the federal government?

[Bjartr]

> only as capable as it is at promoting American interests in the world because it has many of the biggest winner-take-all corporations in its jurisdiction.

At a glance it seems this would only remain true so long as American interests and the interests of the corporation align. Which they do, up to a point.

The question then becomes where is the "triple point" between "A globally competitive USA", "Corporate oligarchy", and "Power to the people"? If such a balance can when exist