4 ms·
How do they support the rationale that rent-seeking is enabled by "regulatory restrictions" and not the near-impossibility of competing with a pile of capital s
by knieveltech 9y ago
How do they support the rationale that rent-seeking is enabled by "regulatory restrictions" and not the near-impossibility of competing with a pile of capital several orders of magnitude larger than yours?
- Anderkent 9y agoHow do you square 'impossibility of competing' with rent-seeking? Rent seeking is when one obtains economic gain without creating wealth; if big capital is outcompeting you, aren't they providing more value than you for less? Examples of rent seeking that come to my mind are things like obligatory licenses (license owners can charge higher prices because possible competitors are shut out of the market); excessive zoning (property owners extract value because no new property construction is allowed); subsidised production. What's an example of rent-seeking caused by someone having a pile of capital much bigger than small companies, that does not happen through lobbying for regulation?
- knieveltech 9y agoWould you like to review the pharmaceutical industry or any of the several instances Microsoft has been hit with anti-trust lawsuits? Or review what's happened to the retail sector in the wake of Walmart and Amazon rising to primacy? Two of those cases involve no special regulation guarding the parent companies. The other is an entire industry only barely held in check by what regulation already exists. Oh yeah, I almost forgot about Food Lion. They have a multi-decade track record of opening new stores in areas served by smaller chains, operating at a loss until the competition is driven out of business, then dialing their prices up.
- leereeves 9y agoAmazon is rent seeking?
- knieveltech 9y agoDid I say that?
- leereeves 9y agoAmazon was part of your reply to: > What's an example of rent-seeking caused by someone having a pile of capital much bigger than small companies, that does not happen through lobbying for regulation? It seems like you mixed the discussion of rent seeking with a separate discussion of the competitive advantage of big companies.
- knieveltech 9y agoMore like responder willfully ignored the larger critique on competitiveness and chose to attempt to narrow the conversation to a discussion of rent-seeking, assumably because they felt they might stand a better chance at refuting the smaller claim. Sadly that didn't pan.
- leereeves 9y agoSeems like you narrowed the conversation when you said: > Rent seeking and hoarding demonstrably harm others. I don't agree with the other party that libertarians hate rent seeking, though. The most obvious example of rent-seeking is, well, rent - and I've never heard a libertarian speak against landlords.