Economics: What a monopoly isn't.

[jediuser598]

I'm going to assume you see competition as a good thing. How would you go about preserving competition?

[Fife]

LOL, "preserve."

[DBTrek]

I'm going to assume you see competition as a good thing. How would you go about preserving competition?

How are you going to preserve breathing?

Competition is the natural state. It exists by default. Competition is only curtailed when government steps in to artificially influence natural competitiveness. Cable companies - monopolies due to government intervention. Utilities - monopolies due to government intervention. Google, Facebook, and Microsoft - not monopolies.

Your question is backwards. It should be "How do we go about preventing the government from further stifling competition to favor themselves or their vested interests"?

[jediuser598]

I'm going to assume you see competition as a good thing. How would you go about preserving competition?

How are you going to preserve breathing?

Competition is the natural state. It exists by default. Competition is only curtailed when government steps in to artificially influence natural competitiveness. Cable companies - monopolies due to government intervention. Utilities - monopolies due to government intervention. Google, Facebook, and Microsoft - not monopolies.

Your question is backwards. It should be "How do we go about preventing the government from further crippling competition to favor themselves or their vested interests"?

The government, all it is is a monopoly on violence. If competition is the natural state of things, then competition will be able to overcome violence by the government. So why are all these libertarians complaining about government? The market will overcome any obstacle, including government.

Monopolies only exist if they are maintained by monopolies.

[K@th]

Our Aspie's current belief is that Youtube, Twitter, Google, Facebook are monopolies. This is a difficult concept to understand for some. I just facepalm, because he won't here arguments on it.

OTOH, I can choose between Comcast & At&t for network & cable. Sure, I have a "choice," but those choices are :

1. way-too-expensive-for-shitty-service
2. way-too-expensive-for-shitty-service

Fuckers. We current have way-too-expensive-for-shitty-service .

[DBTrek]

I don’t follow that last post, Jedi, but defining monopolies is hardly a “libertarian” thing. It’s an economic thing. It’s a thing the government has hijacked to further exert their power and enrich themselves through weasel-worded legislation. Look at your own citations and count the number of ambiguous terms that basically allow the government to declare anything a monopoly (complete with follow-up empty promises that the government, of course, would never abuse this power).

A dispassionate reading of your own citations should convince you that the fix is in, and that the government basically reserves the right to name anything a monopoly and to disrupt it for “the good of the people”.

Yet the worst market abuses from ENRON, to cable companies, to the bailout of the financial sector happen time and time again at the hands of the government.

Any true monopolies existing in America happen solely under the protective legislation of government. Businesses can’t restrict new entries to the marketplace themselves. I can’t open a cab company in NYC because the city limits competition through selling taxi medallions, not because the existing taxi companies locked me out through elf magic.

/shrug

[jediuser598]

The government is a monopoly, on violence. You can certainly do violence, but the government is going to crush you, thus ending your competition in the arena of violence. It doesn't have a 100% market share on violence, but it is "successful" at violence. Whereas you are not successful at violence unless the government says so. You see the monopoly it has?

You're positing that only governments can institute monopolies. It is because of the government that monopolies exist.

Thus you're saying that only monopolies can institute monopolies.

"what entity can prevent new businesses from arising to challenge established ones?
The government."

What is the government?

I'm positing the government is a monopoly on violence. What is the government to you?

"if a monopoly exists, then odds are the government is responsible for allowing or facilitating its existence."

But all the government is, is a monopoly!

[Fife]

DB, I'm staying out of the way. This thread is gud gud.

[K@th]

DB, I'm staying out of the way. This thread is gud gud.

Some of you know way more about modern slang than I do. So, looked this up in Urban Dictionary:

gudgud
a girl who has the skills to be really good at sex.
Damn, that girl got the gudgud.

[DBTrek]

Jedi - Right.

I think the waters get a bit muddied when you conflate government monopoly on violence to an economic monopoly. Government isn’t an economic institution, but rather a social one. It ostensibly serves the common good by protecting borders (though not in California apparently), providing public infrastructure, and negotiating international agreements among other things.

Economic monopolies exist when businesses (aka economic institutions) are enshrined as the sole providers of goods/services to a market. Monopolies are bad for the economy because these sole providers can set arbitrary prices and there will be no competition allowed to drive them down. This, like centrally planned economies, results in economic inefficiency. It’s bad stuff. But it CANNOT exist unless other parties are forbidden to compete against them.

The government can forbid this competition - but the businesses can’t. There’s no business I can start that will allow me to forbid competition. But if I can get the government to collide with me, THEY can forbid competition.