Reddit mentions of The Ascent of Money : A Financial History of the World

Thanks for the reply. There are a few points in here which deserve looking into so apologies if this gets long.

Firstly, you pointed out the pricing of the mobile industry in NZ. Thats certainly a problem with a duopoly and one that needs regulation. While I think that pricing is unrelated, in this case, to innovation I absolutely agree that lack of competition will lead to less innovation. Which is perhaps what you were trying to say. But this isnt to do with size its more to do with competition. 2Degree hasnt innovatated as such, it is just undercutting leading to a price war. Which is good.

Telecommunications is actually a great example of big (enormous) businesses doing the innovating. Companies like Cisco have the size and means to spend billiions on their technologies. They will defend those technologies with every ounce of legal power they have and they will attempt to extract as much profit as possible for them. Which as you say is what they are there for and what their investors expect of them. I wouldnt be too impressed if I bought Cisco shares and found they were giving away their IPR to competitors because they thought it would be good for society. In the early days of corporations this was actually possible and management teams constantly ripped off shareholders. Read Niall Fergurson's The Ascent of Money for more on that. So absolutely agree that society needs to create laws to protect society from necessarily amoral business. But back to big business and innovation.

So besides the 'rare' examples of Apple, Google and Cisco mentioned so far (i'll get to the NZ ones in a moment) what other large businesses would possibly be considered innovative. Looking at the Top 500 you see a whole lot of businesses that make the economy possible through materials or sevices (oil, mining, banks, insurance) whihc you dont associate with innovation. Fair enough, although Im sure if you talk to people from the industry they may disagree. You see at the top Wal Mart. Disgraceful company that destroys communities you are most likely thinking. Agreed but wow that company is one of the most innovative in the world. It redefined the concept of logistics. Its supply chain management is the most advanced in the world and getting better every day. They are doing for efficient logistics what Henry Ford did for efficient production.

Now I am only talking about innovation here. I am not trying to argue for the goodness of these companies, just that they can innovate and in many areas only big companies can. Look through that list and see all the tech companies. These companies innovate or die. The Sonys, LGs, Duponts, IBMs, Nokia (went from a forestry company to the worlds biggest manufacturer of phones and helped connect the globe - although hasnt innovated enough it would seem!).

The drug companies are an interesting one. These companies spend billions developign cures to diseases. These cures wouldnt exist without that spend but then these fuckers charge for the pills in the third world where people are dying. But would the pills exist if they didnt? Thats a tough one to argue either way and not on subject at the moment. These big drug companies spend billions developing cures that no small company would have the resource to adequately create and test. Yes they do it for huge profit but it also has enormous benefits.

The simple fact is that average human lifespans and quality of life has increased hugely in the time that corporations have been around. Its impossible to argue against that.

So big companies certainly innovate, and in many cases are the only organisations with the ability to.

Ahh and my NZ examples. Im disappointed that you dont know about these! I think all NZers should be proud when NZ companies are out there battling with companies from local markets 100x the size of ours.

Fonterra not sexy but have a read through here

Air NZ. Well they are a fantastic company and we should all be proud of them being (probably) our most famous global export. Read this especially after point one.

Interested to hear more from you on this statement.

>However, there are many other avenues which yield better returns, at least at this point in time and based on current economic models.

Im not quite sure what you are referring to.