<story><title>Alibaba breaks itself up in six</title><url>https://www.economist.com/business/2023/03/30/alibaba-breaks-itself-up-in-six</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>endisneigh</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s interesting to contrast China&amp;#x27;s approach of not allowing business to operate within the plane of power in which the government does, vs. the United States, which has companies whose power is certainly on the level of many state governments.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pmoriarty</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s no bright, clear separation between governments and corporations in America.&lt;p&gt;Corporate execs regularly get jobs in government, and often wind up &amp;quot;regulating&amp;quot; the very industries&amp;#x2F;companies they came from.  It&amp;#x27;s also an open secret in Washington that when politicians retire they often get cushy, high paying jobs in the very companies they regulated or provided government contracts to.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a revolving door between corporations and governments, and it&amp;#x27;s misleading to think the one is truly separate from the other.&lt;p&gt;A better model is to look at the corporate-government interaction as competing elites vying with one another for money, power, and influence, and just as often collaborating with each other on shared interests.</text></comment>
<story><title>Alibaba breaks itself up in six</title><url>https://www.economist.com/business/2023/03/30/alibaba-breaks-itself-up-in-six</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>endisneigh</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s interesting to contrast China&amp;#x27;s approach of not allowing business to operate within the plane of power in which the government does, vs. the United States, which has companies whose power is certainly on the level of many state governments.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>duxup</author><text>To me the complicating factor is “why”.  I’m not sure why China as a government makes the calls it does.&lt;p&gt;It’s not clear to me that those aren’t just as self serving as say a big company in the us operating freely and so on.</text></comment>