• Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I mean, the earliest corporations were colonial expeditions, so it would depend on your definition of “benefit to society” to say if that was really a good thing.

    • applepie@kbin.social
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      6 months ago

      Well at leads “youur country’s” peasants benefited some how… We can’t even get that from these parasites

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        It was good at the time because it was an improvement from the feudal system that basically said the king owns everything and allows subordinates to manage things for him with more layers down to serfs who were bound to the land they lived on. The people benefited because initially ownership spread out and different owners would compete with each other to attract workers or renters.

        At this point, the issue is that things are getting consolidated and looking more and more like the feudal system, only with corporations at the top owning most assets instead of kings (which also creates a layer of indirection obscuring the true owners behind the corporations, other than some of the more attention seeking ones like Musk, Gates, or Bezos).

        The exploitation of the colonized people and stealing their resources acted as a multiplier to this. Supply increased, so prices decreased for demand to meet the new supply.