Comments on: Can someone make sense of this?

By: GuinnessGuy

GuinnessGuy — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 13:22:25 +0000

Which is why the Vatican mandated price and wage controls back when blacksmiths were the pinnacle of industry.

By: markg

markg — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 02:38:15 +0000

Actually, there’s always been an advantage to hugeness. A thousand blacksmiths banded together in any particular area could have fixed prices low to drive out competition, then limited supply to raise prices, or otherwise controlled the horseshoe market in any number of ways. Maybe activists target big businesses precisely because bigness creates and exerts economic and political power that is exponentially greater than small business power. I realize that this probably sounds so simplistic to profound thinkers like Reynolds with their complex theories of causation linked to executive malfeasance.

By: justin

justin — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 23:56:30 +0000

Methinks Instacracker had too much boob play from Atlas at the OSM Orgy. Nevertheless, I doubt a third rate law prof at a third tier law school even knows who Berle and Means were, let alone be able to understand the Modern Corporation and Private Property.

By: Random Guy

Random Guy — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 18:02:34 +0000

Ah, now I see why we're googlebombing Open Source Media.

By: ahem

ahem — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 16:36:51 +0000

I think someone famous said that you could put a thousand monkies in a room with type-writers and eventually you would get Shakespeare. Or at least Scenes From A Mall.

By: Pinko Punko

Pinko Punko — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 11:20:22 +0000

Hey, has anyone been shopping for waffles on Amazon lately?

By: Capt. Trollypants

Capt. Trollypants — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 11:19:46 +0000

I AM IN STITCHES. Try another video game. I think it might be funny with ANY GAME>

What’s the one where you are this ball that rolls and round and sticks to stuff. That’s so Pundy.

“IT’S LIKE I AM GATHERING LINKS I”M SUCH A TOTAL GENIOUS!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!”

By: Jillian

Jillian — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 11:05:35 +0000

If you heart me that much, then we should spend an evening sharing drinks and humiliating observations about Instadork’s gaming habits.

Can anyone else see him sitting around getting all turgid while playing Railroad Tycoon?

By: Capt. Trollypants

Capt. Trollypants — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 10:29:32 +0000

Jillian, I heart you soooo much, although you know he’s playing Battlefront.

By: Jillian

Jillian — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 09:45:31 +0000

errr…………

Prior to the industrial revolution, capitalism as we know it didn’t even exist, so comparing a mercantile-era family workshop to a small business in the fully capitalized corporate system of today is comparing apples and any other goddamned thing on the planet that isn’t apples.

Economies functioned on a weird amalgam of feudal dependencies and proto-trade union associations. Corporations were chartered by kings, for specific purposes, and existed only at the king’s will. If the corporate governors pissed the king off, the corporation ceased to exist. This system was about as anti-free market, anti-libertarian as you could get.

And Reynolds has obviously never read so much as the first chapter of “Wealth of Nations”, where Smith analyzes how task specialization in the making of pins could increase a trade shop’s output geometrically.

Let me guess…Glenn was using his university’s wireless internet access to play Quake on his laptop during History of Western Civ II.

By: Timmah420

Timmah420 — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 09:37:52 +0000

Hey did sadly, no! Switch to approved comments? Or did the bot eat my post?

By: Timmah420

Timmah420 — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 09:37:06 +0000

This is also, I suspect, one reason activist groups like to target Open Source Media. Small businesses don't care what they think, unless the Open Source Media are their customers. Big businesses are run by people who can afford to let other issues -- like Open Source Media -- affect their bottom lines. In this sense, giving in to activist demands is just another example of management self-dealing. Like Open Source Media jets or fancy executive dining rooms, it's a way for managers to improve their quality of life at the expense of Open Source Media. PS: Open Source Media

By: Red and Black

Red and Black — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 09:31:03 +0000

This is kind of fun: by choosing the name of a pre-existing company, comprised of widely-used buzzwords, the folks at Open Source Media have preemptively Google-bombed themselves!

By: lgf quiz

lgf quiz — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 09:27:16 +0000

OTOH, something to be said for precedent too... Hey, I hear that Open Source Media is teh gay!

By: lgf quiz

lgf quiz — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 09:18:42 +0000

Don't agree with the guys politics but he's such a implacable foe of the pajamadheen it really seems more fitting - why not make it Open Source Media instead?

By: Dan Someone

Dan Someone — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 09:02:06 +0000

Have you checked out Open Source Media? It's the BOMB.

By: Mrs Tilton

Mrs Tilton — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 08:39:20 +0000

Gobsmacked as I am to admit this, I find myself agreeing with Reynolds here. At least, I agree to the extent he is claiming that topmost managers of firms strongly subject to the inherent contradictions identified by Berle and Means tend to be rentseeking parasites.

But I’m not altogether certain that’s the route Reynolds meant to travel down; and I am altogether certain he is in any event, at bottom, a dickhead.

By: Capt. Trollypants

Capt. Trollypants — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 08:36:03 +0000

ha ha you effed up the italics tags! that is CLASSIC Sadly, No!

By: Timmah420

Timmah420 — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 08:31:57 +0000

Don't you mean "Open sores media? Sorry my mistake, it's spelled Open source media Hey, Have I mentioned Open Source media yet? What a gee golly great place to get your "open source news" Whatever the fuck that means.

By: Timmah420

Timmah420 — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 08:26:59 +0000

Pinko- Here's a start. Here, and here