And yet it seems likely that your typical corporation, even your typical monopoly, does much more good for the world than a typical human would do with a similar amount of optimization power. Even billionaires who donate to charity probably don’t generate as much utility for mankind as your typical aggressively run Chinese manufacturing company.
Is this true if we compare corporations and people on a per-capitalization (or per-resource-ownership) basis? Maybe not, if we count the resources of the people making up the corporations.
I’m confused, and I would have to think very carefully about how to avoid double counting, and about coordinated decision problems, and blahhh. I’ll read a good book on microeconomics in the next week and perhaps my intuitions will become better tuned.
And yet it seems likely that your typical corporation, even your typical monopoly, does much more good for the world than a typical human would do with a similar amount of optimization power. Even billionaires who donate to charity probably don’t generate as much utility for mankind as your typical aggressively run Chinese manufacturing company.
Is this true if we compare corporations and people on a per-capitalization (or per-resource-ownership) basis? Maybe not, if we count the resources of the people making up the corporations.
This is quite non-intuitive, although I can see why it might be true. Do you have any evidence?
I’m confused, and I would have to think very carefully about how to avoid double counting, and about coordinated decision problems, and blahhh. I’ll read a good book on microeconomics in the next week and perhaps my intuitions will become better tuned.