3 ms·

Natural monopolies are actually one of the main places regulation helps.

passerby1 6y ago
In EU, maybe. However don't forget the lobbying. Money is actually a power (via buying other people's time and effort to spend on one's problems). The money is also behaves like the mass in Universe: it sticks together in large clots. So the power does too.
varispeed 6y ago
We need a regulation that will automatically deal with such monopolies by ordering companies to split after reaching certain thresholds. This way we would never get companies too big to fail.
- andrewinardeer 6y ago
  Then what is the incentive to start a company, grow it within the legal and regulatory framework and when it gets to an arbitrary, non-defined size have the legal and regulatory bodies systematically dismantle it by forcing you to sell it off?
  - varispeed 6y ago
    It's not selling off but splitting. The goal should not be to create 100 billion super company, but to provide value to consumers. Companies that would be at a stage where they would be required to split have different priority - to extract value from a consumer and maximise profits for shareholders. That will be a target, not your small or medium business.
  - lmm 6y ago
    The ability to walk away with enough money to fund multiple lifetimes of obscene gluttony long before that point?
  - int_19h 6y ago
    There should be no incentives to grow a company past a certain limit. Ideally, that limit should be established well in advance. And in US, it was back in the day - but then, thanks to Reagan and Robert Bork, we effectively threw away all the anti-trust legislation that was functioning quite effectively for 80 years. The large businesses, of course, heavily lobbied in favor of that. So, they have created the present environment - and now that we have seen (yet again) why anti-trust enforcement has to be proactive, they're complaining that it would be unfair to revert to old rules?
  - stjohnswarts 6y ago
    because the company is still intact but not it is split in two. It's obvious that there needs to be limits on capitalism when companies get too large that they can dictate what the internet/any market does on a whim because they're the only game in town. Amazon and Google are quickly approaching that if not already there. They can crush competitors on a whim.
  - alexashka 6y ago
    The same incentive to start a family or a restaurant. I don't know why people open restaurants - do they know the profit margins? They must, and they do it anyway. So it must be for the love of it. This idea that starting a business just to make money is a good idea, is tenuous at best. It's a sign of the times that people even ask the question of 'well, if I don't get rich, why would I do it at all?' It's a sign of how dysfunctional work has universally become, that people view it as suffering, to reach a promised land, rather than a calling to do your part as part of a larger community. If it's suffering, maybe something is wrong. Taking away the idea of heaven enables you to say no to resistance you're experiencing now. That's a good thing - don't believe anyone promising you a heaven later on - how would they know and if they're in it, is mentoring you to suffer really a part of their heavenly experience?
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    Supose we take this icorrect argument - you starg a company but at arbitrary size you have to sell off chunks. Okay, you made a profit, thats the point of capitalism. Are you suggest we should instead cater to megalomaniacs that wish to run maximally large companies and rule industries?
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  We'll need a second bit of regulation then (and I'd say, possibly we need it already) to counter the obvious workaround - creation of a thousand of small companies doing roughly the same thing, controlled by the same group of investors.

In EU, maybe. However don't forget the lobbying. Money is actually a power (via buying other people's time and effort to spend on one's problems). The money is also behaves like the mass in Universe: it sticks together in large clots. So the power does too.

varispeed 6y ago

We need a regulation that will automatically deal with such monopolies by ordering companies to split after reaching certain thresholds. This way we would never get companies too big to fail.

andrewinardeer 6y ago
Then what is the incentive to start a company, grow it within the legal and regulatory framework and when it gets to an arbitrary, non-defined size have the legal and regulatory bodies systematically dismantle it by forcing you to sell it off?
- varispeed 6y ago
  It's not selling off but splitting. The goal should not be to create 100 billion super company, but to provide value to consumers. Companies that would be at a stage where they would be required to split have different priority - to extract value from a consumer and maximise profits for shareholders. That will be a target, not your small or medium business.
- lmm 6y ago
  The ability to walk away with enough money to fund multiple lifetimes of obscene gluttony long before that point?
- int_19h 6y ago
  There should be no incentives to grow a company past a certain limit. Ideally, that limit should be established well in advance. And in US, it was back in the day - but then, thanks to Reagan and Robert Bork, we effectively threw away all the anti-trust legislation that was functioning quite effectively for 80 years. The large businesses, of course, heavily lobbied in favor of that. So, they have created the present environment - and now that we have seen (yet again) why anti-trust enforcement has to be proactive, they're complaining that it would be unfair to revert to old rules?
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  because the company is still intact but not it is split in two. It's obvious that there needs to be limits on capitalism when companies get too large that they can dictate what the internet/any market does on a whim because they're the only game in town. Amazon and Google are quickly approaching that if not already there. They can crush competitors on a whim.
- alexashka 6y ago
  The same incentive to start a family or a restaurant. I don't know why people open restaurants - do they know the profit margins? They must, and they do it anyway. So it must be for the love of it. This idea that starting a business just to make money is a good idea, is tenuous at best. It's a sign of the times that people even ask the question of 'well, if I don't get rich, why would I do it at all?' It's a sign of how dysfunctional work has universally become, that people view it as suffering, to reach a promised land, rather than a calling to do your part as part of a larger community. If it's suffering, maybe something is wrong. Taking away the idea of heaven enables you to say no to resistance you're experiencing now. That's a good thing - don't believe anyone promising you a heaven later on - how would they know and if they're in it, is mentoring you to suffer really a part of their heavenly experience?
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Supose we take this icorrect argument - you starg a company but at arbitrary size you have to sell off chunks. Okay, you made a profit, thats the point of capitalism. Are you suggest we should instead cater to megalomaniacs that wish to run maximally large companies and rule industries?
TeMPOraL 6y ago
We'll need a second bit of regulation then (and I'd say, possibly we need it already) to counter the obvious workaround - creation of a thousand of small companies doing roughly the same thing, controlled by the same group of investors.