Businesses Need Policing

The East India Company, once one of the most powerful English corporations, cost England the American colonies, plundered India, created the opium fields in Afghanistan, smuggled opium into China, and caused two wars with China which still have repercussions today. When it appealed to the government for a bailout, its actions came to light and the English government eventually took over its operations. Many businesspeople want less government, but to protect our national interests government needs to be policing businesses.

The East India Company was chartered in 1600 and grew to be the largest English corporation for much of its life with several private armies. Its armies were twice the size of the British army. It used much wealth on members of parliament making many members shareholders. The result was that it received special tax privileges.

One result of those special privileges was the American Revolution and the loss of the American colonies. The company got a special tax rate for its tea which suddenly made it the lowest cost provider. When its ships loaded with tea at that special low tax rate showed up, we celebrated by throwing all that tea into the ocean in the Boston Tea Party.

When governments and corporations become merged, national interests often get destroyed by the corporate drive for short term profits. Corporations focus on much shorter time lines than nations and will make decisions for the short run that cause much larger problems later. Corporations are focused on profit while governments can be focused on the people. Governments run by business people may allow harm to the public while preserving individual profits.

The Great Bengal Famine of 1770 is an example where the corporate need for profits took precedent over caring for the people. The East India Company was collecting taxes in Bengal at that time. The drought was so severe that up to a third of the population disappeared by starvation, disease, or migration. The company's actions earned it a rebuke from the Crown.

Most businesspeople are conscientious and caring about others. The few percent that are criminal or psychopathic are why we need to police business. But that few percent are millions of people.

Corporations need to be policed by the state. The nature of corporations is that while they spread risk, they also spread moral responsibility allowing people to hide bad actions. Fraud, bribery, and other morally questionable actions happen and often can be hidden within the corporate structure. Corporations need policing from the outside.

Those who want smaller government must accept that businesses need policing. Before we can have smaller government, we would have to break up all the large corporations so that they can be still policed by that smaller government.

Burn to Prevent Wildfires

Wildfires burning out west leaving black stumps, burned out vehicles, and only foundations from where houses once stood. We can prevent these, but it requires frequent small scale burning which clear out small trees and brush. A landscape that is fire resistant looks far different than the dense greenery that we love to look at. The same is true for business. A business that is resilient to troubles operates differently than one that is optimized for profit and doesn't give the CEO the same opulent salary, benefits, and office building.

The US Forest Service knows how to prevent wildfires. It takes burning everywhere on a more frequent schedule. In some places, it takes a low-level fire every three to five years. Some places take longer intervals. But we have been preventing these low-level fires for decades ever since 1910 when a large fire called the "Big Blowup" burned a huge land area. A forest that is prepared to resist wildfires is a lot more open, trees are spaced further apart, few small trees are around, and most places have grasses and flowers growing under the trees.

Similarly, businesses can prevent a trouble from "burning them up" by planning for disasters. The head of IT at American Airlines was quoted as saying that he is most concerned about reducing the impact of problems, "reduce the blast radius." In the recent CrowdStrike fiasco, American Airlines was back in business within hours while Delta was still canceling flights days later. Similarly, the grocery chain HEB has a Director of Emergency Preparedness with the fulltime job of preparing for disasters and has an Emergency Operations Center.

"Fire drills" in business can emulate the low level burning of forests and prevent larger problems.

Risky Business

McDonalds experimented with AI taking orders. The errors were comical at times including creating orders for bacon topped ice cream. Another time it ran up an order of 260 Chicken McNuggets as the customers were screaming "stop." One writer called it "As if Siri's daughter had just got her first job."