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> It's also fairly clear that at least over long enough time horizons there aren't many natural monopolies. Would you say this is because the benefits to decen
by notduncansmith 9y ago
> It's also fairly clear that at least over long enough time horizons there aren't many natural monopolies.
Would you say this is because the benefits to decentralization don't often bear themselves out as visibly as the costs over a shorter time horizon?
In other words, is a "natural monopoly" simply externalizing the costs of centralization to the future?
- ghaff 9y agoIf you're talking about protecting a supposed natural monopoly through regulation, there's probably some truth to that. The thinking probably goes something like "We must protect the public from an unregulated monopoly today." Left unspoken is "And the future is someone else's problem. They'll deal with it if they have to." As for whether there really are natural monopolies, the classic examples are things like electrical distribution systems. If one company has already wired up a city, it's going to be hard for someone else to come in and wire up the same city in competition. (And may not be a great idea from the perspective of public policy.) However, over longer timeframes technology change and market forces overturn many monopolies. IBM, Windows, Ma Bell--these were all considered to have monopolies at one time.