5 ms·

Do you think the same about telecom monopolies and the negative externalities of fossil fuel companies?

abfan1127 9y ago
telecom monopolies are government enshrined, so not capitalism. Negative externalities of burning fossil fuels (plastics are a fossil fuel product) are allowed because government allows people to pollute "some"... not capitalism.
- phinnaeus 9y ago
  I don't understand your second sentence. Government currently allows some pollution. Should government disallow all pollution?
  - riffraff 9y ago
    OP is saying that government allow a certain amount of pollution. A government could decide to forbid pollution altogether (whatever that means) and still maintain a capitalistic economic system. We have generally forbidden dumping barrels of spent oil in rivers, for example. Likewise, a non-capitalistic system can forbid or not pollution.
  - theseatoms 9y ago
    To the extent it owns land, yes.
- tanderson92 9y ago
  Perhaps the defenders of capitalism should have to account for the effect their economic system has on the government and its ability to properly regulate the economy given the immense private wealth that the owners can use to influence policy and politicians. It is an economic and political system, not purely an economic system.
  - nnfy 9y ago
    You're conflating free markets with capitalism. And once laws are influenced by capitalists, the market is no longer free. And this is again a failure of government, not capitalism. As an analogue, you cannot say that socialism is a flawed system purely because of what happened in russia-you must not mix up economic and political philosophies.
    - tanderson92 9y ago
      The free market determined that that was the fair price for government policies to be bent towards industries' or actor's will. You'll forgive people critiquing the economic system if it freely and naturally leads to the ills we find objectionable. And on the contrary, I absolutely do hold the failure of the Soviet system against central planning and command economies, even socialist ones. Given that, I find democratically-executed socialism using markets for prices (some consider this market socialism) much preferable.
    - johncolanduoni 9y ago
      You can if your complaint (as above) is that the economic system has adverse effects on the political system or vice versa. Would you claim you shouldn't attribute the resulting explosion to water when you pour it on sodium because one is a liquid and the other is a metal?
- mcguire 9y ago
  Telecom monopolies were created because of this: http://www.sandman.com/images/oldpolewires1sm.jpg http://www.sandman.com/images/oldpolewires1sm.jpg They were government regulated until that didn't work, then broken up. After the subsequent deregulation, the monopoly is in the process of re-creating itself now.
  - euyyn 9y ago
    Hahaha holy crap!
  - discreteevent 9y ago
    I think that may be a picture of phone lines when they were point to point i.e. each connection had a dedicated line rather than going through a switch. I don't think it had anything to do with thousands of telecom companies.
    - mcguire 9y ago
      "Under Theodore N. Vail from 1907, AT&T had [...] acquired many of the independents, and bought control of Western Union, giving it a monopolistic position in both telephone and telegraph communication. A key strategy was to refuse to connect its long distance network — technologically, by far the finest and most extensive in the land — with local independent carriers. Without the prospect of long distance services, the market position of many independents became untenable. Vail stated that there should be "one policy, one system [AT&T's] and universal service, no collection of separate companies could give the public the service that [the] Bell... system could give."" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsbury_Commitment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsbury_Commitment
- CalChris 9y ago
  telecom monopolies are government enshrined Telecom monopolies are not by government intent by rather by regulatory capture. As a capitalist, I hella want to exclude others from the market. If I can get the government to do this for me, then I'm willing to pay the lobbyist fees to make that happen. In the IP space the only reason I'm willing to slave away at invention is the possibility of a patent, a right to exclude, a limited monopoly. As a capitalist, the absolute last thing I want is a free market. Thiel puts it this way: competition is for losers.
  - Qwertious 9y ago
    On the one hand, patents give companies a reward for innovation and result in them doing research they might not have otherwise done. On the other hand, software patents.

telecom monopolies are government enshrined, so not capitalism. Negative externalities of burning fossil fuels (plastics are a fossil fuel product) are allowed because government allows people to pollute "some"... not capitalism.

phinnaeus 9y ago
I don't understand your second sentence. Government currently allows some pollution. Should government disallow all pollution?
- riffraff 9y ago
  OP is saying that government allow a certain amount of pollution. A government could decide to forbid pollution altogether (whatever that means) and still maintain a capitalistic economic system. We have generally forbidden dumping barrels of spent oil in rivers, for example. Likewise, a non-capitalistic system can forbid or not pollution.
- theseatoms 9y ago
  To the extent it owns land, yes.
tanderson92 9y ago
Perhaps the defenders of capitalism should have to account for the effect their economic system has on the government and its ability to properly regulate the economy given the immense private wealth that the owners can use to influence policy and politicians. It is an economic and political system, not purely an economic system.
- nnfy 9y ago
  You're conflating free markets with capitalism. And once laws are influenced by capitalists, the market is no longer free. And this is again a failure of government, not capitalism. As an analogue, you cannot say that socialism is a flawed system purely because of what happened in russia-you must not mix up economic and political philosophies.
  - tanderson92 9y ago
    The free market determined that that was the fair price for government policies to be bent towards industries' or actor's will. You'll forgive people critiquing the economic system if it freely and naturally leads to the ills we find objectionable. And on the contrary, I absolutely do hold the failure of the Soviet system against central planning and command economies, even socialist ones. Given that, I find democratically-executed socialism using markets for prices (some consider this market socialism) much preferable.
  - johncolanduoni 9y ago
    You can if your complaint (as above) is that the economic system has adverse effects on the political system or vice versa. Would you claim you shouldn't attribute the resulting explosion to water when you pour it on sodium because one is a liquid and the other is a metal?
mcguire 9y ago
Telecom monopolies were created because of this: http://www.sandman.com/images/oldpolewires1sm.jpg http://www.sandman.com/images/oldpolewires1sm.jpg They were government regulated until that didn't work, then broken up. After the subsequent deregulation, the monopoly is in the process of re-creating itself now.
- euyyn 9y ago
  Hahaha holy crap!
- discreteevent 9y ago
  I think that may be a picture of phone lines when they were point to point i.e. each connection had a dedicated line rather than going through a switch. I don't think it had anything to do with thousands of telecom companies.
  - mcguire 9y ago
    "Under Theodore N. Vail from 1907, AT&T had [...] acquired many of the independents, and bought control of Western Union, giving it a monopolistic position in both telephone and telegraph communication. A key strategy was to refuse to connect its long distance network — technologically, by far the finest and most extensive in the land — with local independent carriers. Without the prospect of long distance services, the market position of many independents became untenable. Vail stated that there should be "one policy, one system [AT&T's] and universal service, no collection of separate companies could give the public the service that [the] Bell... system could give."" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsbury_Commitment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsbury_Commitment
CalChris 9y ago
telecom monopolies are government enshrined Telecom monopolies are not by government intent by rather by regulatory capture. As a capitalist, I hella want to exclude others from the market. If I can get the government to do this for me, then I'm willing to pay the lobbyist fees to make that happen. In the IP space the only reason I'm willing to slave away at invention is the possibility of a patent, a right to exclude, a limited monopoly. As a capitalist, the absolute last thing I want is a free market. Thiel puts it this way: competition is for losers.
- Qwertious 9y ago
  On the one hand, patents give companies a reward for innovation and result in them doing research they might not have otherwise done. On the other hand, software patents.