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How competitive is capitalsim anyway? What's the best measure for it? When I look out in the economy I see massive industries that are being protected by their

How competitive is capitalsim anyway? What's the best measure for it? When I look out in the economy I see massive industries that are being protected by their governments for various reasons: some of it political, some of it effective lobbying. In many sectors private companies are building off of a platform that their government has provided for them. For instance, the NIH is a major contributor to pharmaceutical research, yet once a new drug comes to market, the profits all go to the private company and the tax payer is essentially charged twice for access to the drug (cost of research and cost to buy the drug). I had one idea of what a free market was growing up, but as I've learned more about the global economy it seems like the idea of a free market was just a clever ruse.

nickpsecurity 8y ago
"How competitive is capitalsim anyway? What's the best measure for it?" I look at stuff like this among a group of suppliers: 1. What suppliers offer in terms of product, capabilities, etc should be going up. 2. If comparing two versions of something in No 1 overtime, then... 2.1. Quality/reliability/security should go up over time. 2.2. Price should go down. 3. Customer service should improve over time given it's an easy differentiator. 4. Convenience of any aspect of the business should go up over time. Low-hassle in general. You'll find in monopolies or cartelized oligopolies that these are all bad or move super slowly in a way that keeps everyone high margin. In highly competitive industries, things move fast with many players having low margin.
spectrum1234 8y ago
Profit margins. In general the lower, the more competitive. Historical average in US is 8.5%, 9-10% more recently. This is pretty competitive! Although a bit less recently because profit margins went up ~1.5%. This is also, generally, why different industries have different profit margins. Here, its even more obvious.

nickpsecurity 8y ago

"How competitive is capitalsim anyway? What's the best measure for it?" I look at stuff like this among a group of suppliers: 1. What suppliers offer in terms of product, capabilities, etc should be going up. 2. If comparing two versions of something in No 1 overtime, then... 2.1. Quality/reliability/security should go up over time. 2.2. Price should go down. 3. Customer service should improve over time given it's an easy differentiator. 4. Convenience of any aspect of the business should go up over time. Low-hassle in general. You'll find in monopolies or cartelized oligopolies that these are all bad or move super slowly in a way that keeps everyone high margin. In highly competitive industries, things move fast with many players having low margin.

spectrum1234 8y ago

Profit margins. In general the lower, the more competitive. Historical average in US is 8.5%, 9-10% more recently. This is pretty competitive! Although a bit less recently because profit margins went up ~1.5%. This is also, generally, why different industries have different profit margins. Here, its even more obvious.