US President election and Trading

[cdcaveman]

In a macroeconomic sense,"Free-markets," as anarcho-capitalists who refer to themselves as "libertarians" envision them, can not exist for long. They will spontaneously morph into something else. In the absence of regulation they will become cartels and monopolies; when over regulated in an accommodating political environment they will become, via regulatory capture, fascist partners with government, raising ever higher barriers to market entry from competitors. It is only through wise, restrained, even-handed regulation that anything like free markets can exist for long. This latter state of affairs is unstable and therefore difficult to maintain.

Your so far off..... This idea you have that regulation is the answer is completely wrong.. it is through regulation that big business gets its monopoly.. you literally contradict yourself in practically the same sentence... You said anarco capitalist seek government regulations to gain competitive advantage and the prescribed gov regulation as the answer.... By definition free marketeers detest regulation... You can say all you want that these people morph into something else but it is only by special privlege that monopoly occurs... The only conduit for monopoly is through a central government.. the answer is not more central government..

 

[Sig]

Your so far off..... This idea you have that regulation is the answer is completely wrong.. it is through regulation that big business gets its monopoly.. you literally contradict yourself in practically the same sentence... You said anarco capitalist seek government regulations to gain competitive advantage and the prescribed gov regulation as the answer.... By definition free marketeers detest regulation... You can say all you want that these people morph into something else but it is only by special privlege that monopoly occurs... The only conduit for monopoly is through a central government.. the answer is not more central government..

That's an odd philosophy that is at odds with pretty much any study of how monopolies occur. In many industries, especially capital intensive ones with high barriers to entry, the natural progression is for a few big companies to emerge, then for them to merge to obtain pricing power or sell at less than cost until they bankrupt their competitors and then have monopoly pricing power. Or for a company to build a new, easily defensible industry, i.e. computer operating systems or phone service and then set up bundling agreements to ensure that no competitor can hope to compete. Do you really think Standard Oil or Ma Bell or Microsoft only got where they were because of regulations that helped them? Can you point out exactly what regulations those would be? That would certainly be a minority view of anyone who has done any serious study on the matter, have you?

 

[piezoe]

Your so far off..... This idea you have that regulation is the answer is completely wrong.. it is through regulation that big business gets its monopoly.. you literally contradict yourself in practically the same sentence... You said anarco capitalist seek government regulations to gain competitive advantage and the prescribed gov regulation as the answer.... By definition free marketeers detest regulation... You can say all you want that these people morph into something else but it is only by special privlege that monopoly occurs... The only conduit for monopoly is through a central government.. the answer is not more central government..

I would invite you to read again what I wrote. I did not say "anarco capitalist seek government regulations to gain competitive advantage", capitalists do that sometimes, but, by definition, not anarcho-capitalists. What you are referring to in your comment is what economists call 'regulatory capture,' which I addressed.

 

[cdcaveman]

Sorry Microsoft had no monopoly...it couldn't be sustained... Apple came along and took tons of their market....in a free market a monopoly can not sustain itself for very long... Cartels form and break up... Just because some businesses are capital intense doesn't mean they don't fall.. it is only because ethey fall as a result of garage tinkering entrepreneurs that our standard of living is so high

 

[cdcaveman]

That's an odd philosophy that is at odds with pretty much any study of how monopolies occur. In many industries, especially capital intensive ones with high barriers to entry, the natural progression is for a few big companies to emerge, then for them to merge to obtain pricing power or sell at less than cost until they bankrupt their competitors and then have monopoly pricing power. Or for a company to build a new, easily defensible industry, i.e. computer operating systems or phone service and then set up bundling agreements to ensure that no competitor can hope to compete. Do you really think Standard Oil or Ma Bell or Microsoft only got where they were because of regulations that helped them? Can you point out exactly what regulations those would be? That would certainly be a minority view of anyone who has done any serious study on the matter, have you?

I guarantee I've done more studying then you... Your status quo interventionist economics are just the current popular ideology... Call me an outcast minority all you want

 

[Sig]

I guarantee I've done more studying then you... Your status quo interventionist economics are just the current popular ideology... Call me an outcast minority all you want

I simply asked you to provide a specific example of a regulation that made Standard Oil, Bell, or Microsoft obtain a monopoly. Let's be generous and say Microsoft didn't have a monopoly, what can you provide for a specific, concrete example for Standard Oil and Bell?

Since you don't know the first thing about me, I'm not sure how you can guarantee you've done more studying than me, perhaps you could simply say you have a PhD in economics and leave it at that, or maybe even point me to some papers you've authored on the subject? You know that whole theory of gravity thing is just the current popular ideology as well, so we should probably just ignore it also, no matter that pretty much all the research and experimentation points to it being mostly accurate. Again, if you have anything concrete I'm always willing to consider alternate views, that's the scientific method after all. However when you make a bold assertion that pretty much universally goes against the substantial study done in a particular field, it's incumbent on you to provide some support for that minority opinion or be condemned to just ranting in obscurity forever.

 

[cdcaveman]

You attacked me by saying I want well read.. so I just responded with another similarly useless response.. sorry I did that.. I'm in the field today... I will give a more thoughtful response in a bit... The communications industry is heavily regulated.... regulations are barriers to entry...

 

[Sig]

You attacked me by saying I want well read.. so I just responded with another similarly useless response.. sorry I did that.. I'm in the field today... I will give a more thoughtful response in a bit... The communications industry is heavily regulated.... regulations are barriers to entry...

I look forward to that. I know it's not fair to hit you while you're thumb punching on your phone, but I would point out that the communications industry is heavily regulated now precisely because of Bell, it wasn't at all regulated when the grew to become a monopoly which most maintain is why they were able to do so. The barriers to entry were the high fixed cost, nearly zero variable cost nature of running wires to people's homes, a combination which particularly lends itself to natural monopolies because both the barriers to entry and the fact that an incumbent can reduce prices to nearly zero for a substantial period of time to bankrupt any new potential competition without having a significant impact on themselves. Of course wire line phone service to the home is now a monopoly, it's a regulated monopoly with franchises granted by the utility commissions in each state, so talking about the situation now is a moot point.

 

[cdcaveman]

Right and now most people I know down even have home phones... Technology blew that all up with cellular.... Just as another tech company blew through Microsoft's so call monopoly.... It would have only been a matter of time before the hardwired telephone companies would have had cellular knock them out... It's a touchy subject for most people because this idea of natural monopoly and giving it to government to handle is the current idea of the most practical thing to do.. privatization has been villainized with the likes of Enron and similar villains... The banks are by far the most villainous imo... They basically are not money warehouses but state aligned theives... government guarantees the big power companies profit.... the amount of exploitation of our tax money is sick to me... Im tired of paying so many taxes just to have them paid out to companies that don't have to compete in a near free market like myself

 

[Sig]

Right and now most people I know down even have home phones... Technology blew that all up with cellular.... Just as another tech company blew through Microsoft's so call monopoly.... It would have only been a matter of time before the hardwired telephone companies would have had cellular knock them out... It's a touchy subject for most people because this idea of natural monopoly and giving it to government to handle is the current idea of the most practical thing to do.. privatization has been villainized with the likes of Enron and similar villains... The banks are by far the most villainous imo... They basically are not money warehouses but state aligned theives... government guarantees the big power companies profit.... the amount of exploitation of our tax money is sick to me... Im tired of paying so many taxes just to have them paid out to companies that don't have to compete in a near free market like myself

The Bell company started in 1877 and it and is successors had an effective monopoly on phone service until 1984. Disruptive cell service didn't come around until the late 1990s at the earliest. So essentially you would have had to have waited for over 100 years until technology bailed you out from that monopoly. I tend to agree that it's only a matter of time, but a lifetime is too much time for most of us. And again they didn't gain that monopoly because of regulation, they gained it because of the structural nature of their industry and if you had 100 alternate universes that invented phone service and made no attempt to regulate it you'd end up with a monopoly at least 99 times.
Make no mistake I'm all about free markets, I actually run markets as my business. However I also believe that all evidence points to the fact that in certain industries you'll nearly always end up with a monopoly that is the opposite of a free market if you don't have anti-trust regulations. In general any industry with a high fixed cost or other structural barriers to entry and low variable cost, any industry where a company can corner the raw materials market for their industry, as well as any increasing returns to adoption technology will tend toward monopolies without regulation.
Keep in mind that this is a completely different discussion from natural monopolies like electricity and gas distribution. That's another argument for another day, but I think we can all agree that having 5 gas and electric lines to everyone's home isn't in the best interest of anyone and the only alternative to having a regulated monopoly would be state ownership. This is my industry at the moment, and even here we're doing our best to make the parts that can be market driven into free markets.