Are big corporations at odds with each other?

[ambelamba]

I came up with that question when I read an article about Google wanting to enter the automotive industry. You heard that right. Google wants to make cars of their own for...taxi business.

For the last few minutes I thought of the possibility that many big corporations are actually at each other's throat. Some of you might think that all of them work in unison for a vast master plan. But I think it's more likely that the world is full of invisible wars between corporations.

It's reasonable to assume that one company's interest might collide with other's. We can't rule out the possibility of Elon Musk suddenly go full bonkers and decide to work on thorium-powered cars. That will make more than a few industries furious. Or Warren Buffet leaves his deathbed wishes of building a vast network of conventional railroads in the US soil, making airline companies rather p***ed off.

Commercializing synthetic meat will make the meat industry really unhappy. And it's none other than Sergey Brin who's behind the project. China and India are working on thorium-based nuclear plants and one university in America just figured out how to harness nuclear power without using a steam turbine. Someone's got to be unhappy about it.

[Likely Guy]

This is the way that business has always worked though, so there's no argument from me.

I just fail to to see the 'conspiracy' aspect of your OP.

Edit: ...or are you arguing against a conspiracy that 'some' might see? I don't know.

Edited August 25, 2013 by Likely Guy

[Space Commander Travis]

i don't think so, I think this ideal that the Capitalists tell us that Capitalism is the ultimate system because everyone is in competition with everyone else, and so it guarantees that those who provide the best product or Service get to the top, is all a lie. Gigantic megacorporations, whether it's Micro Soft and Gogle or this supermarket and that supermarket or this fast food chain and that fast food chain, don't compete with each other, they simply wrap up the market between them and buy up any small entrepreneurs who try to enter the market (see: Go Ogle and Youtube). In this case, I think the Conspiracy probably is true.

And these Entrepreneurs who have no experience in the field they have their Big Ideas about, like this Elton Musk dude and his supersonic trains, or indeed, for all its might, (and here I'd be quite happy to see an Entrepreneur trying to break into the market fail), Gargle, and apparently their desire to make taxis (I presume these would be some sort of electric thing, or perhaps powered by hyperborium or unobtanium), they never get anywhere, because they have no experience or any facilities for large-scale engineering or manufacturing, so the existing companies in the business know that they'll be no threat at all, and they'll be able to buy them up at a knock-down price in a year or two. Like that chap who tried to make his own cars that they made a film about a few years back. So these Uber-Brainy Entrepreneurs are never any threat to the existing big corporations.

Edited August 25, 2013 by Colonel Rhuairidh

[spud the mackem]

When competition gets too fierce between 2 companies making the same product, the weaker one is usually bought out and absorbed by the larger.In the U.K this has often happened,one particular Company now has a Monopoly in the Electrical retail trade,with no competition.Within the last 50 years the British Merchant Navy no longer exists,Shipyards have closed,and I could go on,but its visible to everyone.

[Almagest]

They collude like crazy. In fact that's what I reckon the Bilderberg group meetings are about - how the corporations can collectively screw us over and increase their profits.

[Little Fish]

iir there was a swiss study that proved were 400 corporations which controlled the vast bulk of the world's wealth and the board members, ceos and controlling interests were all interlocked amongst each other. evidence of conspiring/competing against each other, nil.

[Almagest]

And it's ridiculous that whenever someone suggests something to change it, they're accused of promoting class warfare. They have been waging war on our wallets for centuries.