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Thinking of it as “unfair competition” implies that companies have some sort of entitlement to a market. They don’t. If my town wants to have its own fire depa
by chrisbennet 9y ago
Thinking of it as “unfair competition” implies that companies have some sort of entitlement to a market. They don’t.
If my town wants to have its own fire department, it’s not “unfair” to privately owned fire departments anymore than working on my own car is “unfair” to professional mechanics.
- mindcrime 9y agoNationalized producers are generally considered "unfair" because they're usually (always??) tax subsidized in some way. As such, they're not competing on a level playing field with the other players. In fact, the other players are being taxed... to pay for subsidizing their direct competitor! Now if you wanted to setup a nationalized producer, put a "chinese wall" between it and the State and force it to compete without subsidies or special (favourable) regulations, sure, go for it. But then what's the advantage of it being nationalized to begin with? Anybody could start a non-profit corporation and do the same thing.
- apatters 9y agoNationalized production is usually something to discourage for the same reason monopolies and oligopolies should be discouraged--they are insulated from competition in special ways, and as a result in the long run they tend to become inefficient (which in the worst case translates to basically extorting customers). The root of the problem with American drug companies is that they're insulated from open market competition by a government approvals process that costs billions--only a few companies have enough money to take a new drug to market. The government could reform this process but chooses not to, claiming it's necessary for consumer safety (certainly some kind of approvals process is).