Comments on: Competition is the Freedom to Act Differently From Others

By: Twitted by hirodusk

Twitted by hirodusk — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:59:50 +0000

[...] This post was Twitted by hirodusk [...]

By: Karl

Karl — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 08:18:00 +0000

To say that “Competition is the Freedom to Act Differently From Others” is a true statement, but not a very useful one. The important concept is diversity, not competition. Competition is about rivalry, where one entity gains advantage at the expense of the other. Cooperation is a much more useful paradigm, where all participants gain. The amount of competition and/or cooperation in a system is orthogonal to the amount of options available. The freedom to choose among existing options or create new ones, however, is greater where there is cooperation.

By: Rafi

Rafi — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 21:58:00 +0000

I really liked this post, it was really clear. Thanks for sharing.

By: PeterW

PeterW — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 21:22:47 +0000

As a practical matter, opposition to tax havens may be due to aversion to tax competition. However, I am not sure that your theoretical justification of tax havens is tenable. Imagine a small country that provides low corporate taxation and few social services, and has companies registered there only as a flag of convenience. Without any hand in providing either the workforce of the companies or the manufacturing infrastructure they use, I’m not sure if this can be counted as “jurisdictional competition.” Although it would lead to lower global taxation – an outcome I favor – it seems like a zero sum game transferring revenue from governments to corporations.

If, however, companies move their revenue-generating operations to low-tax jurisdictions, then that would be legitimate jurisdictional competition, much like individual emigration.