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I really wish people would clarify what they mean by "free market" -- whether they mean unregulated (a politician's free market) or competitive (an economist's

by drostie 14y ago

I really wish people would clarify what they mean by "free market" -- whether they mean unregulated (a politician's free market) or competitive (an economist's free market). If you are saying that there are no examples of monopolies in competitive markets, that's because it would be a contradiction in terms. If you're saying that all monopolies are created and enforced by governments, then that's just flat-out false. Pepsi and Coke dominate the industry of selling pop due to branding; the only "government enforcement" of their domination is that you can't brand your own pop so that it would be easily confused with Coke. Same with Microsoft -- the US government never threatened to jail you if you don't run Windows, but Windows had a monopoly on the desktop market for a while and it's only recently begun to show cracks. I would go so far as to say: governments themselves are "free-market monopolies" in this sense. That is, there is no binding unilateral authority which solves intergovernmental disputes, and each government instead has to negotiate with other governments in an open and unregulated forum where even backstabbing and flagrant contract violations are permitted. If governments are monopolies on power, then the market of power is surely not a well-regulated one.

deleted 14y ago
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yummyfajitas 14y ago
A monopoly is a market with only one supplier. Pepsi and Coke are not a monopoly - as you explicitly acknowledge, there are at least two suppliers in this market. Microsoft was never a monopoly, there were always other suppliers (Sun, Be, IBM, Apple, Linux, at different points in time).
- drostie 14y ago
  That's why I was putting more emphasis on the word "domination" than on "monopoly". I agree that WalterBright may have been making a very dense and mostly irrelevant point, to which the proper response may have been "so what?". I simply disagree that this is how we should interpret it. Rather I would give the benefit of the doubt and take him as making a real, germane, substatial-but-misguided libertarian talking point. That is, there are legitimately people in the libertarian camp (I was one of them!) who falsely conflate deregulated markets and competitive ones.

by drostie 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

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yummyfajitas 14y ago

A monopoly is a market with only one supplier. Pepsi and Coke are not a monopoly - as you explicitly acknowledge, there are at least two suppliers in this market. Microsoft was never a monopoly, there were always other suppliers (Sun, Be, IBM, Apple, Linux, at different points in time).

drostie 14y ago
That's why I was putting more emphasis on the word "domination" than on "monopoly". I agree that WalterBright may have been making a very dense and mostly irrelevant point, to which the proper response may have been "so what?". I simply disagree that this is how we should interpret it. Rather I would give the benefit of the doubt and take him as making a real, germane, substatial-but-misguided libertarian talking point. That is, there are legitimately people in the libertarian camp (I was one of them!) who falsely conflate deregulated markets and competitive ones.