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World & Current Events > Should a country be run as corporation?

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message 1: by Nik (new)

Nik Krasno | 19874 comments It sometimes happens: a country is doing good, maximizing its proceeds from taxes and other payments, while its citizens become poorer. Maximizing the profit line is a corporate spirit, but should a state have a similar purpose or should it focus more on social responsibility? And what to do with budget surplus: lower/return taxes or spend the money where it's needed?
Yeah, a state forms a playground, cares for defense and rules (sometimes biased towards certain interests) to be observed. Every country also plays the re-distribution role - some of the proceeds collected from taxpayers are spent on businesses and citizens in trouble and/or for incentives and loans. In most places it's negligible, in some - sizable.
How important is this re-distribution function in your opinion?


message 2: by M.L. (new)

M.L. I think it's important to share the wealth; the more severe the class division, the more it paves the way for unrest.


message 3: by Bernard (new)

Bernard Boley (bernard_boley) | 126 comments In many ways, countries are managed the same way corporations do. Major stockholders as well as members of any political party inner loop benefit more than the ordinary stockholder or the people considered individually.

We often forget that the checks and balance in most democracies (legislative, executive, and judicial) neglect the fundamental power of the people. Once elected, a government will usually do everything it can to have all the branches turn into one single mindset, that of the executive. Sadly, sharing the wealth with the people is probably their last priority and is becoming more a myth than their main purpose.

Would a corporate approach do better? Hell! How did I ever manage to come up with such a ridiculous question?


message 4: by GR (new)

GR Oliver | 479 comments Whenever corporations have a hold on things, the general public suffers. Corporations are not interested in people. There interests are in profits. Also, if you're not productive (and that's a subjective matter), you are out. Nations, on the other-hand, must deal with people or they have social problems. I don't know how a nation can be operated like a corporation and the people fair. History hasn't proven it to me. They say the best social time in the US was the 1950s. But, if you look at the nation at the time, it was sucking from all over, and putting a lot of nations under dictators who weren't too good. And since the 1950s, as corporations got a stronger hold on everything, the general public faired less.


message 5: by Matthew (new)

Matthew Williams (houseofwilliams) Absolutely not. Corporations are hierarchical structures that answer only to their board of directors and investors. In that respect, corporations are oligarchies, concerned only with those who have the money to make their voices heard. What's more, the CEO of a company is not answerable to their employees, effectively making them a dictator.

And it seems to me we are seeing what happens when a government is run like a corporation. It's called the Trump administration.


message 6: by GR (new)

GR Oliver | 479 comments Matthew wrote: "Absolutely not. Corporations are hierarchical structures that answer only to their board of directors and investors. In that respect, corporations are oligarchies, concerned only with those who hav..."

Amen!


message 7: by Nik (new)

Nik Krasno | 19874 comments taking into account that most countries fail (see below) in adhering to fiscal discipline, maybe it's not such a bad idea?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...


message 8: by Ian (new)

Ian Bott (iansbott) | 216 comments I guess your answer will depend a lot on what you think is the main purpose of a nation and its government.

A nation is made up of its citizens. Dictators and oligarchs will disagree, but I believe the primary purpose of the nation is to look after the health and welfare of its citizens. If not that, then why does it even exist?

If you take that view, then you see that nations and corporations have fundamentally different purposes and interests, and under the current reward model for corporations (maximize the bottom line, nothing else matters) they are fundamentally incompatible.


message 9: by Nik (new)

Nik Krasno | 19874 comments Ian wrote: "...I believe the primary purpose of the nation is to look after the health and welfare of its citizens. If not that, then why does it even exist?

If you take that view, then you see that nations and corporations have fundamentally different purposes and interests, and under the current reward model for corporations (maximize the bottom line, nothing else matters) they are fundamentally incompatible...."


A state is a multi-purpose vehicle, and I guess everyone may expect different things of it. As a basic form of societies' organization it was designed to provide defenses, protection, order, basic (or much more than that) services and also to keep at bay discontent of less privileged (usually a majority) with more privileged. On a more complex level, it should take care of an optimal (re)-distributions of resources and establishing rules of play in every field of activity. Not sure about health, but supposedly they are for the well-being of all citizens. In practice though, it's often preferential towards different segments.
Some corps today are much more successful than any state. Yeah, say Microsoft's or Google's purpose may be the benefit of Gates & Co or Page/Brin & Co respectively, however their employees at any level are much better off than any average citizen in the same locale.. So the side effect may be stronger than state's declared prime target -:)
Of course, there are other examples - of say, automotive industries' melt-down, but so are of sovereign entities going bankrupt, be it Greece or others..


message 10: by Nik (new)

Nik Krasno | 19874 comments With mounting debt in too many countries, should sustainability/profitability become one of the priorities when running a country?


message 11: by J. (new)

J. Gowin | 8004 comments Look up the history of Chiquita Banana.


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