This is not a question of ideology, but one of definition. If we define a private company as one operating independently from the government, then it must operate independently from the government. Any critique of companies that operate in conjunction with the government is at least a critique of corporatism, if not socialism, and thus of the government.Machinesworking wrote:"private company", the idea that a company is somehow public if it manipulates, the government, is IMO an ideological concept, not based in anything tangible. The larger a company gets the more it manipulates politics, I really don't see any way out of that?
This is also perhaps a question of definition. I've consulted a number of dictionaries and encyclopaedias and they all specify that a monopoly must at least have 100% of the market. I say at least, because there are other factors that can intervene, such as legal and natural barriers to entry. In the case of Microsoft, we had less than 100%, and there were no legal or natural barriers to entry. Hence, by all standard definitions, MS was NEVER a monopoly.Machinesworking wrote:Because Microsoft has lobbyists for instance it's by what seems to be your definition not a private company, and conversely if a company has only a 97% market share, the 3% very possibly being in a niche area, then it is not a monopoly. You're asking for definitions of concepts that limit the discussion to the ideological from my perspective, which is interesting to a degree, but on an ideological level all 'isms' are practical and possible. For instance your hated socialism would 100% work if it was 100% adhered to by people. Anarchy would work if people were capable of policing themselves etc.
As for socialism being workable, I invite you to read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_c ... on_problem. And if this subject intrigues you, know that Mises' critique of socialism, that he expands in his book "Socialism", has never been refuted.
The Nazi market was no freer, and Stalin killed up to 60 million. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Sta ... of_victims)Machinesworking wrote:Again, it was private companies that funded the Nazis, they were afraid of socialism. They also until the Nazis started losing the war, made all kinds of cash off of WWII. The Nazis being responsible for roughly 40 million deaths, easily beat good old Stalin. So a "freer market" anyway, really let hell loose.
I don't think that's very likely.
