Even if it leads to greater profits in the end as they don't have to expend the extra effort to bend over and lube up like they do now?
One third of Microsoft's revenues come from Europe, one third from North America and one third from Asia/South America/Africa/Australia/South America. If you stand to lose 1/3 of your revenue, you're going to lube up good, even if you had to put in a whole lot more extra effort than they're doing now.
Well, the EU isn't operating under a capitalist economy. What's the proper word for an economy featuring heavy government control over day-to-day business operations?
You'd have to ask the right-wing conservative and free market liberal parties currently in power in Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Ireland, Finland, Belgium etc, that is if they manage to talk while laughing uncontrollably at the suggestion that the EU isn't operating under a capitalist economy. The fact that they take an active role in encouraging competition between enterprises doesn't make them socialists, they're doing it because they know from experience the kind of stagnation and complacency that sets in when there are monopolies and de-facto monopolies. Just look at Microsoft, for years they weren't innovating at all, just raking in the money. Only now when there's finally some external pressure have they started to innovate again.
In an actual socialist economy there are no private enterprises to speak of, everything would be run by government owned monopolies. There are no countries like that in Europe, you must be thinking of Cuba or North Korea. Some 30-40 years ago there were a few countries like UK, Sweden etc where the government ran stuff like telecom, mining, airlines, railways etc, but those days are long gone.
To be fair, the United States have become socialist as well. Just not to the extent the EU seemingly has.
Again, you don't seem to have any idea what socialism is.
Given the powers allotted to the European Union, it's as much one country as the United States are (with the "countries" fulfilling the role of the states).
Yes, it's similar in many ways. It's a federation of states under one flag, a federal government and local governments. But little of everyday life has changed since the pre-EU days. It's still a bunch of different countries with different languages, and you'd never see an EU flag on any flagpoles except maybe in Brussels.
Anyway, the EC isn't anti-capitalist, it's anti-monopoly. They're using regulations to encourage competition, for the benefit of consumers and innovation. They have often forced member states to give up government controlled monopolies and made them privatize those markets, which is something a socialist government would never dream of doing.
