And why is forcing a business to be competitive bad?
That part of the article does not make sense - it’s a bad analolgy for the creating scarcity theme. Some companies are more valuable when broken up into more manageable parts, or when the highly profitable divisions are separated from the less profitable divisions that were dragging the stock price down. This situation often occurs in a merger, when efficiencies of scale are not realized, or in multi-industry conglomerates which become a management nightmare. Breaking up these kind of companies is not downsizing, but releasing their true value. A good example is the Daimler-Chrysler merger, which has been disasterous for Chrysler.
“And why is forcing a business to be competitive bad? “
It isn’t. I concluded the author of this is an economic illiterate. See my critique of his statements.