I caught an article today in regards to Apple removing Bose products from their stores and it got me thinking about capitalism and the similarities between inter-corporate competition and international competition. For instance I also caught an article in which Russia is, apparently, banning McDonalds from their country so while apple is banning competing products from their stores as a market strategy so too is Russia banning competing products as an economic strategy. Apple's strategy, not unlike the strategy of any other corporation, is highly reminiscent of cold war style sanctions.
At any rate from this I began to ponder the interesting relationship between communism and capitalism. Under communism there is one all powerful governing body that creates and enforces law and is in full control of all resource collection and distribution. On the opposite end of the spectrum there is capitalism under which there are many different governing bodies, corporations, that compete with one another for their own survival. While under communism the people have no choice under which rule they submit under capitalism the people have a variety of choices and as such those choices must compete for the peoples allegiance.
Under communism the government has no incentive to create and maintain a comfortable and welcoming environment, but under capitalism the different organisations must make some efforts to outperform the others lest the people switch allegiance.
One of the biggest threats to capitalism is the monopoly, which is to say a single corporation, or otherwise governing body, is able to overcome the obstacles and obliterate all other competition. Under such a circumstance capitalism then becomes communism in which there is but one governing body or corporation. This corporation becomes the governing body because all citizens must be employees of this one corporation thereby they must obey all the rules set forth by this corporation and can only obtain the means to survive through this one corporation.
Of course the United States has set up a system that seeks to prevent this most inevitable of outcomes. In this case the government seeks to prevent any one corporation from stomping out all of their competition. One example of this would be the break up of AT&T years ago. This system seeks to ensure that the corporations are in a never ending, unwinnable battle with one another in a bid to ensure capitalism never becomes communism.
An issue here is that many corporations have the means to purchase politicians which could give them the power to prevent the government from stopping their bid to form a monopoly. However; because of the competitive environment that currently exists among corporations there is not one, but many corporations with the power to buy politicians and so they keep each other in check, preventing each other from cornering any one market.
Here's the kicker. "Western civilization" has been aggressively seeking to spread capitalism throughout the world, pointing to the United States as a shining example of the success of this model. However; if the United States succeeds in spreading capitalism throughout the world it would only prove that one governing body can overcome the obstacles to conquer all other governing bodies thereby proving it possible for one corporation to do the same, overcome the obstacles, conquer all their competition and create a monopoly signing capitalisms death certificate.
If the west succeeds it only proves the west a failure.