Limits to Size of Companies

How do companies get too big to fail? First they get too big. When they are too big, like socialist economies, they have no idea of what things cost internally, so they fail.

NDA means non-disclosure agreement, and NCA means non-compete agreement. These are contracts to keep things secret. I think they are unethical to sign. Are they related to the size of companies?

I'd say inextricably. I was discussing patents on medicine with the CEO of a local biotech, he of course defending patents. I was arguing open source development of meds, and came at him with the idea of independent contractors working on aspects of the process more efficiently than a corporation, and questioned him on what value corporations per se provided. His response was a corporation allowed assets to outlast any actors in the case of a disaster or otherwise traded, etc. I asked what assets in particular, and he said look at the balance sheet. It is a statement of what a corporations owns, property as in plant and equipment, and such things as "goodwill" and intellectual "property."

Well. Aside from the weird idea that a legal fiction, a corporation, can own real property, we can pretty much assume the real property was acquired through monopoly profits given the patents and trade secrets. (As for "goodwill" since I believe trade marks are not legit, goodwill would rather go out the window if everyone could be "Google" tomorrow.)

What do NDAs and NCAs have to do with IPR? In our present regime, if everyone in the process of developing intellectual "property" felt free to discuss openly any direction a given company was taking at any point, and how far along they were, then not much would make it to the level of intellectual "property" as defined by the regime. The system would rather fall apart, but there would be an incessant rush to be first with the best. NDAs and NCAs are critical to maintaining the regime. Likewise, without NDAs and NCAs corporations could not aggregate exceptional wealth without monopoly profits.

In our regime we get really cool shiny things. But sickle cell anemia goes unaddressed, and HRT is sold for 35 years before someone bothers to measure the effect. We have a one size fits all economy and exceptional wealth strictly limited. In a free market we would have literally innumerable options but no exceptional wealth.

It would be fascinating to see what the balance sheets of a few leading companies would look like with IPR and goodwill deleted.

I think it is unethical to sign NCAs because knowledge is not a category of property. You ought to be available to serve anyone who will meet your price.

I think it is unethical to sign NDAs because knowledge is not a category of property. You ought to be able to sell what you know to anyone who will meet your price.

In both instances, it is never true you are the only one who knows something valuable (obviously he who requested you sign the agreement, and anyone else working in the area). Customers will decide what you are worth when they check around on the price from others of what you offer. The fact that you are "for sale" will cause the info holder to lower his price instantly since he cannot depend on exclusivity any longer. It becomes a race to the bottom. The customer rules again. All is well in the universe.

So I'd say NDA and NCA and size of corporation are inextricably linked.

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