From: "Albert P. Franco, II" <apf2@apf2.com>
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 1998 02:07:54 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: RE: tyranny of corporations (was: Corporate Nations)
Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19981207161424.006ae900@209.204.247.83>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/enriched

 >>>>
From: "Blanc"  


Also, this image of hyperindividualism doesn't seem right.  I would think such an extreme degree of individualism would exclude much involvement with others, meaning they could not run corporations, because for a business to exist requires involvement in providing a service/product to the largest numbers of the population as possible,  and they can only do this if this large mass of people see the value of, and accept, in preference to the offerings of the competition, what that particular corporation offers.  
  
I imagine a hyperindividual more as an independent contractor working "alone".

There are dozens of examples of the Executive that comes to a new position, cuts jobs and makes other changes that make the bottom line look good in the short term. Since the sales of a very large company are not likely to "crash", this person looks good for a couple of years, then hops to a new job and the next guy catches the fallout of the short-term vision. 

The independent contractor on the other hand will probably never have the sales base to get away with screwing over his/her employees and clients. The independent contractor, that is not an out and out criminal, generally has to be very careful not to alienate the customers. A big corporation on the other hand can afford to lose a few thousand customers without too much trouble. A scoundrel has a much better chance of fucking over people in his/her rise to the top in a corporation than in a small company. 

The fly-by-night companies that are obviously rip-offs are not quite the same thing since very few people aspire to be like these folks. But the original authors point is correct in that a very large part of the population want to be able to emulate the big time self-interest seekers.

APF