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Which is wrong. Why should someone have to pay a penalty (and to whom?) for simply living his or her life?
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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"The government broke up Ma Bell (which screwed us all, btw) for being a monopoly, when it became a monopoly only because the government prevented competition by force in the first place."
Generally I could agree. But, in the case of the Bell System, it was successful because it was, in very fact, a system. Bars to entry for competetors were not artificial governmental constructs. They were inherent in the nature of the system Breaking it up was counter productive and detremental to society. We probably will never recover. If we do it will be through the new technology, the development of which was largely paid for by the Government
Posts: 1167 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Artemisia Tridentata: "The government broke up Ma Bell (which screwed us all, btw) for being a monopoly, when it became a monopoly only because the government prevented competition by force in the first place."
Generally I could agree. But, in the case of the Bell System, it was successful because it was, in very fact, a system. Bars to entry for competetors were not artificial governmental constructs. They were inherent in the nature of the system.
Sorry, but you're mistaken. It was literally illegal to try and set up a competing phone company.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:The fact remains, that monopolies that come into existence without the use of physical force can only maintain their monopoly status by providing the best deal. Otherwise, they're inevitably supplanted.
"Providing the best deal" can include in its spectre a number of business practices which are inherently noncompetitive. Such as price bombing, which is by nature providing a deal that smaller providers simply cannot match.
You start this by concluding "The fact remains," but you're wrapping up your argument awful early. Especially considering that these are theoretical monopolies that exist in a theoretical market environment. I'd love to see this 'fact' get tested, but I never will. In the meantime, I will continue to assume that noncompetitive practices are not impossible for monopolies that could occur in a market which has been deregulated in the way you present in your ideal.
quote:Oh, grow up. The reason I mentioned government coercion is that it's the type that people like you think is legitimate.
Yup! Taxation sure seems legitimate to me. As well as The Fuzz being able to tell me that I'm not allowed to play blisteringly loud music at night (even on my OWN property, the cads!) or drive on the sidewalk just because I feel like it (even if I'm not hurting anyone in the process!).
I also totally feel that it's legitimate for the government to hold a monopoly on airspace regulation! I totally welcome their use of force and authority to coerce people into regulatory flight patterns, to tell people who is and who is not allowed to fly, etc etc.
I'm also totally cool with them coercing food producers and distributors to follow rules! Evil, government imposed rules, like what pesticides they're allowed to use. "No," they say, their evil, beady eyes gleaming in the smoky back rooms of their statist havens, "You aren't allowed to use that pesticide on your crops. I don't care if it's cheaper; our other agency has discovered and documented that it's dangerous -- you still aren't allowed to use 'caveat emptor' in this situation, you just aren't allowed to sell it on the open market. At all, since it's our market and we regulate it. And, by gum, we're coercing you not to! Bwa ha ha!"
There are about a million million coercions I'm totally okay with, and that modern societies use and will continue to use. I could go on for hours and hours. I'm sorry that they have devoured a number of moist, juicy, tantalizing liberties which I am apparently supposed to consider sacrosanct. Sadly, I'm okay with trading them inherently as part of a package deal for being allowed to live and work on land owned by this government.
You've called me a "statist" on account of my support of this coercion. I'm inclined to think that it's a blanket pejorative term, but whatever. If being okay with the fact that the government doesn't let people do certain things (like setting up a discount cocaine stand on a lot across the street from the high school) makes me a statist, then I guess I'm totally a statist. Sign me up for the newsletter. I may even start contributing by publishing a 'zine.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:The fact remains, that monopolies that come into existence without the use of physical force can only maintain their monopoly status by providing the best deal. Otherwise, they're inevitably supplanted.
"Providing the best deal" can include in its spectre a number of business practices which are inherently noncompetitive. Such as price bombing, which is by nature providing a deal that smaller providers simply cannot match.
You say "noncompetitive" like it's a dirty word. If the best deal can't be matched by anyone else, why is that bad? If a big company wants to do that, who suffers? The smaller companies, maybe. But the consumers wind up with lower prices for the same product. Again, how is that bad?
No one has some inherent right to compete successfully. They have a right to try. It's the difference between the right to the pursuit of happiness and the right to be happy. The latter doesn't exist.
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: You start this by concluding "The fact remains," but you're wrapping up your argument awful early. Especially considering that these are theoretical monopolies that exist in a theoretical market environment. I'd love to see this 'fact' get tested, but I never will. In the meantime, I will continue to assume that noncompetitive practices are not impossible for monopolies that could occur in a market which has been deregulated in the way you present in your ideal.
If someone sets a price freely, other people have a choice whether or not to buy. You still haven't managed to give a single example of a monopoly that got to be a monopoly by offering the best deal and is somehow a bad thing.
There are three ways a monopoly can exist:
1) It offers the best deal. 2) The government won't allow anyone to compete with it. 3) It prevents competitors from competing through criminal acts of violence (just to include your lame example of De Beers).
If the government enforces the law, that removes #3. If the government minds its business, that removes #2. And we're left with #1, which is only beneficial. And can only last while it continues to offer the best deal.
Your hysteria about monopolies is like some sort of medieval hysteria about demons. It's a bugaboo. It's something you use to justify governmental intrusion into our lives, but there's no substance to it.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Sadly, I'm okay with trading them inherently as part of a package deal for being allowed to live and work on land owned by this government.
"Owned by this government"? That's just scary. I'm a citizen; not a subject. The government is supposed to serve us; not the other way around.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Which is wrong. Why should someone have to pay a penalty (and to whom?) for simply living his or her life?
Why should you be allowed to use currency if you don't sign the user agreement? You didn't print it. And you don't guarantee its value. Part of the deal is that you have to pay your taxes. Otherwise, your only option is to try subsistence farming somewhere where no one lays claim to the land.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Which is wrong. Why should someone have to pay a penalty (and to whom?) for simply living his or her life?
Why should you be allowed to use currency if you don't sign the user agreement?
The government passed laws preventing people from making their own money. You may remember that.
quote:Originally posted by Glenn Arnold: You didn't print it. And you don't guarantee its value.
Neither does the government. Where've you been living, Glenn?
Money is a thing that we use to symbolize wealth. When I work, I agree to accept X amount of money for my labor, in lieu of actual goods or services. I can then use that money to purchase actual goods or services.
Money itself does not come with a user agreement. It is simply a symbol that we use. If the government hadn't banned people from making their own, we'd be doing that still.
quote:Originally posted by Glenn Arnold: Part of the deal is that you have to pay your taxes. Otherwise, your only option is to try subsistence farming somewhere where no one lays claim to the land.
That's crap. And it isn't even an issue of taxes or no taxes. It's the government taking taxes from us to do things that are not in the legitimate purview of governments.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:The government passed laws preventing people from making their own money. You may remember that.
Yes, because people (banks) were making money that had no value and wasn't guaranteed. The people asked the government to regulate the banking industry because they'd been burned too many times.
quote:Neither does the government. Where've you been living, Glenn?
You talking about that gold thing? Or the federal reserve? In either case you're wrong, the government does guarantee that cash has value.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Sometimes, I think that USSR or no USSR, the Communists won.
The issue of the government printing and guaranteeing the value of cash was settled long before the soviet union came into existence.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:If the best deal can't be matched by anyone else, why is that bad?
I lock out the market and command my own prices. Easy.
quote:There are three ways a monopoly can exist:
If I own all the molybdenum mines in the world, I have created a paradoxical fourth means for maintaining monopoly which does not exist in the three 'only' ways you have described that a monopoly can exist.
I guess that makes it incorrect!
If I can think that up in maybe three or four seconds, you may want to spend some time brainstorming the many extra means by which a monopoly can exist that your first list has missed. Personally, I would include service provision monopolies, land infrastructure monopolies, production and technological monopolies, natural supply monopolies, and monopolies maintained via effective price bombing and other noncompetitive means.
Among others!
quote:Your hysteria about monopolies is like some sort of medieval hysteria about demons. It's a bugaboo.
Oh cool, I'm hysterically hallucinating bugaboos
thx for the classy quotes lisa
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:If the best deal can't be matched by anyone else, why is that bad?
I lock out the market and command my own prices. Easy.
And the moment you do that, you've unlocked the market and made it possible for competitors to enter the market.
When I was majoring in economics, one of my classmates suggested that a company could lower prices to kill the competition, and then raise them again once the competition was gone. And then when the new, higher prices made competition feasible again, they could lower their prices yet again to kill off the new competition. His idea was that they could keep doing this over and over and over again.
My reply to him is the same as my reply to you. If customers are stupid enough to put up with that, they don't deserve anything better. But in the real world, a company might get away with doing that once or twice, but even twice is unlikely.
You can't command your own prices if there isn't a government or a gun preventing competitors from entering the market. You can keep them out for a short time by lowering your prices unreasonably, but how long can you keep it up? And who loses out in the meantime? And when you can't do it anymore, and you have to raise your prices back up, what's keeping the competition out?
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:There are three ways a monopoly can exist:
If I own all the molybdenum mines in the world, I have created a paradoxical fourth means for maintaining monopoly which does not exist in the three 'only' ways you have described that a monopoly can exist.
I guess that makes it incorrect!
That's like saying I have a monopoly on the market of being a 43 year old woman named Lisa Liel who programs in VB.NET. It's truem, because there are no others, but it's insipid to call that a monopoly.
What's molybdenum needed for that nothing else will serve as a replacement? It's a useful metal, but if the price is too high, there are other metals that can be used.
From Wikipedia: "Molybdenum use soared during World War I, when demand for tungsten (Wolfram) made tungsten scarce and high-strength steels were at a premium."
Tungsten was scarce, and therefore expensive. So molybdenum came into greater use. If molybdenum becomes scarce or expensive, other things are available.
But technically, you're right. You can have a monopoly on a material by owning all of that material. That's not the same as having a monopoly on goods or services, but let's put that as a fourth means of having a monopoly if you like.
OSC has a monopoly on writing his books. No one else can write his books. Does he owe it to you to write them? No. It's his right to do so or not, as he sees fit. If I own all the molybdenum in the world, I'm entitled to put it all in a vault and sit on it. No one else is actually entitled to it.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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That's like saying I have a monopoly on the market of being a 43 year old woman named Lisa Liel who programs in VB.NET.[/quote]
No it isn't, because I percieve there to be perhaps a few differences between 'a single woman' and 'the world's supply of a transitional metal.' I am going to sit back and seriously hope that you can understand the difference in market applications that make this a bogus comparison.
Seriously hoping, here. For instance, I can easily discover that a monopoly on Lisa Liel doesn't allow you to create artificial scarcity on yourself. You are also not an important fundamental ingredient for modern alloys used in buildings and modern construction. Unless there's something totally tripped out here that I missed.
quote:If I own all the molybdenum in the world, I'm entitled to put it all in a vault and sit on it. No one else is actually entitled to it.
Or I could use this monopoly to benefit myself through artificial scarcity! The developing world gets to eat it as I charge them up the wazoo for a prime material required for high-grade steel, cutting profit margins heavily out of industrial production for my own gain.
Boo hoo for them and industrial development, but I get out great.
Anyway, a way better example of harmful monopolies entirely possible (and even enabled) by a mostly unregulated market would be big-box retail, which has been oligopolizing over the last thirty years anyway.
For demonstration, you could use a Wal-Mart esque example -- large scale, lowest prices through market aggrandization, etc, etc. Let's say it's come into near-monopoly by your Monopoly Creation Condition #1, "it provides the best deal."
When squaring off against any smaller company, it can simply price-bomb to squeeze off the competition; a reccomendable strategy is to run the store at 20% loss (at least) for a number of business quarters until the Little Guys (and/or smaller-market-share retailers) have to close off. Once they have a regional monopoly on retail, the "they have to provide the best deal to remain a monopoly" thing is totally off. They can run the place with prices above what the other retailers would have provided, had the larger company permitted them to establish themselves there.
Use the profits from the established stores to price-bomb any area in market contention. Then lock the markets up, and America's their very own Pullman Coach Town!
The hypotheticals totally work out, and they're totally possible in your market scenario! No sordid, coercive past is required for this intent and capacity.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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