TMBR: I believe that corporations are evil, and people who think otherwise are wrong

Well this is a lot to take in. Let me try and reply to this as best I can.

I think you missed my point on the moving to Texas perspective thing. Let me try and change it a little. Imagine Toyota was based in Texas and then decided to move to California. You would say "yay! Toyota is great! They care about California!" but everyone in Texas would now say "Toyota is evil! All they care about is profits!" See what I mean? From your perspective you are only considering your 'loss' but not others' 'gain.' People in texas will now benefit from Toyota. What you are saying seems to imply that people in California just inherently deserve more than people from Texas. That's an ingrained bias that you should try and overcome.

You also say Texas doesn't need Toyota because they have oil companies. But why does California need Toyota? California has sillicon valley and the tech industry, hollywood and the movie industry, and much more. I'm not sure why you think California needs Toyota so bad? If anything I'd argue Texas needs them more. With oil falling to record lows, the state is going to be hurting, especially if their economy isn't diversified enough, like California's, to handle a dip in commodity prices.

Moving on to Toyota's actions, they're not evil just because they were motivated by profits. They're a private entity who want to be financially sound. Sure, it would be nice if they could just provide jobs to everyone and raise wages but they can't if it's not financially viable plus it's honestly not their job. Why is it up to them, this random private company, to provide all of California with work? You say they are evil because they caused people to lose jobs, but who provided those jobs in the first place? Toyota! Think of it like this. Without Toyota, there wouldn't have been jobs in the first place. Them leaving just returns California to exactly how it was before they were there. Why should they be forced to stay in an area where they can't be financially competitive just because you say they should? By moving to Texas, they can continue to provide jobs (to Texas who are out of work and need jobs) while driving down costs which are passed on to consumers in cheaper goods and workers in increased wages. Staying in California would have only made Toyota do less good, not more. Unless you think Californians just inherently deserve things over people in Texas, which is morally dubious if you ask me.

Yes, people lose jobs. But guess what? Our employment rate is at the natural rate of unemployment. So people will easily be able to find new work. These people who worked at Toyota (assuming they aren't given new jobs at Toyota Texas) will now be able to go find work in areas that are able to exist in California productively. This will benefit everyone. It's called comparative advantage. Texas may have an advantage in car manufacturing, but California has an advantage in, say, computer manufacturing. So now these people can find work in which their area is most productive. This drives costs down, which means more is produced, consumers get goods for cheaper, and people's wages increase. So Toyota leaving may cause a temporary disruption in the labor market for those who previously worked there, but pretty soon they will be back to work in a much more productive capacity, benefiting everyone.

Corporations are part of the make up of the economy. There are firms and consumers. Supply and demand. Without firms, who supplies everything? Who employees people? Everyone would have to produce what they need on their own, or trade with people through a barter system for basic supplies. This is incredibly inefficient and causes huge economic loss. You say you would prefer barter but you're not considering the difficulties of that system. A barter system relies on a double coincidence of wants. Say you need a coat because it's cold, but you only have chickens (you're a chicken farmer now because we're in economic ruin). In order to get that coat, you would need to find someone who has a coat, is willing to part with their coat, and is in the market for chickens. Good luck with that. And that's just for a coat. Think about every other basic necessity you need. A barter system is just not going to work out in modern society. That is why we have money. So we don't have to barter. You can just give someone some money for a coat instead of searching for someone with a coat who wants a chicken. And you can do this for every purchase you want! Money is pretty useful! Anyway, what I'm saying is that firms provide goods and services to everyone in a much more efficient method than the barter system. This economic system we have has improved quality of life tremendously. Outlawing everyone's business, doing away with money, and forcing everyone to take part in the barter system would raise human suffering to untold levels. I understand you don't like corporate greed, but there are better ways to go about resolving the issue that doing away with out entire economic system. I'd agree there needs to be better regulation. We can solve the government corruption issue with better campaign finance law, not banning corporations.

Anyway, I'd ask your dad about this. He would probably show you how your thinking has a couple flaws and put you on a path to start learning and understanding the complex issue of the economy..

/r/TMBR Thread Parent