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Consider that politicians' only goal is to get re-elected. While the rare exception may exist, that's also true of companies. While governments are accountabl

Consider that politicians' only goal is to get re-elected. While the rare exception may exist, that's also true of companies. While governments are accountable in theory, that rarely holds true in practice. I don't think that a "bigger" government, id est one with more regulatory oversight, would help; rather, use the existing court system to enforce what we have. If we lack political will to enforce the existing measures, adding more will not help. A government need not be "big" to have effective court systems and pass some rules on what certain companies can and cannot do.

arcticbull 6y ago
Monopoly rules only exist and matter because of the government. It's pretty obvious that even with them, there's a real pressure for consolidation (and that's efficiency of scale). The natural state of a company is a monopoly. Once you are a monopoly, you don't need to worry about getting "re-elected" any more than a despot does. The free society exists only in the space between these two clashing titans.
- andrewjl 6y ago
  One of the ideas behind federalism was that government / the state need not have a monopoly on everything. Corporate monopolies usually only persist due to two reasons: regulatory barriers or technological stagnation. Both are solvable.
  - wizzwizz4 6y ago
    If not for regulatory barriers, do you really think Bell Systems would ever have lost its monopoly over US telecoms?
    - andrewjl 6y ago
      It's always hard to talk about history that didn't transpire but yes, due to technological change similar to IBM.
      - wizzwizz4 6y ago
        But they controlled all the phone lines, and hence all the broadband – they'd only be ousted when 3G came along, and even then would they really have?
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Sure regulatory capture can entrench interests, but there's no reason to believe that in the absence of regulation one big company wouldn't aggregate every major market and just destroy all competition.

arcticbull 6y ago

Monopoly rules only exist and matter because of the government. It's pretty obvious that even with them, there's a real pressure for consolidation (and that's efficiency of scale). The natural state of a company is a monopoly. Once you are a monopoly, you don't need to worry about getting "re-elected" any more than a despot does. The free society exists only in the space between these two clashing titans.

andrewjl 6y ago
One of the ideas behind federalism was that government / the state need not have a monopoly on everything. Corporate monopolies usually only persist due to two reasons: regulatory barriers or technological stagnation. Both are solvable.
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  If not for regulatory barriers, do you really think Bell Systems would ever have lost its monopoly over US telecoms?
  - andrewjl 6y ago
    It's always hard to talk about history that didn't transpire but yes, due to technological change similar to IBM.
    - wizzwizz4 6y ago
      But they controlled all the phone lines, and hence all the broadband – they'd only be ousted when 3G came along, and even then would they really have?
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Sure regulatory capture can entrench interests, but there's no reason to believe that in the absence of regulation one big company wouldn't aggregate every major market and just destroy all competition.