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>You get bigger, more violent cartels. Are bigger cartels actually more violent? I thought a lot of the history of the Mexican cartels was the Government almo

>You get bigger, more violent cartels. Are bigger cartels actually more violent? I thought a lot of the history of the Mexican cartels was the Government almost collaborating with some of them because having one dominant cartel resulted in a lot less violence than multiple smaller ones.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
If the price is higher there is more financial incentive to fight over territory (violence). In theory that doesn't happen if there is an actual monopoly, but that only works for Mexico, not the US. Because even if there is only one cartel in Mexico and one in Colombia, that's still at least two cartels operating in the US and fighting over territory. On top of that, the merge to monopoly plan has the further disadvantage that then the monopolist drug cartel will be long-term stable. So their operation remains profitable and they never get shut down, which means their power grows over time as they use money to buy more power ad infinitum. You end up as a narco state. Very bad.
- alexgmcm 6y ago
  Yeah, I don't think it's a good idea, just that was my limited understanding of what had happened. Honestly, I think we'll only solve it via legalisation as anything else just leaves the money in the hands of the drug cartels. One would have hoped we'd have learned the lesson from Prohibition and organized crime in the early 20th century.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> I thought a lot of the history of the Mexican cartels was the Government almost collaborating with some of them because having one dominant cartel resulted in a lot less violence than multiple smaller ones. A lot of the history of Mexican cartels was the government renting territory to all the cartels and actively supporting them as long as they played ball, because because that maximizes the ability to extract revenue from them and play them against them against each other when they get out of line.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

If the price is higher there is more financial incentive to fight over territory (violence). In theory that doesn't happen if there is an actual monopoly, but that only works for Mexico, not the US. Because even if there is only one cartel in Mexico and one in Colombia, that's still at least two cartels operating in the US and fighting over territory. On top of that, the merge to monopoly plan has the further disadvantage that then the monopolist drug cartel will be long-term stable. So their operation remains profitable and they never get shut down, which means their power grows over time as they use money to buy more power ad infinitum. You end up as a narco state. Very bad.

alexgmcm 6y ago
Yeah, I don't think it's a good idea, just that was my limited understanding of what had happened. Honestly, I think we'll only solve it via legalisation as anything else just leaves the money in the hands of the drug cartels. One would have hoped we'd have learned the lesson from Prohibition and organized crime in the early 20th century.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> I thought a lot of the history of the Mexican cartels was the Government almost collaborating with some of them because having one dominant cartel resulted in a lot less violence than multiple smaller ones. A lot of the history of Mexican cartels was the government renting territory to all the cartels and actively supporting them as long as they played ball, because because that maximizes the ability to extract revenue from them and play them against them against each other when they get out of line.