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Gasoline is heavily regulated and subsidized. Leaving the oil market alone resulted in Standard Oil, and we obviously don't want that again.
by thrance 6mo ago
Gasoline is heavily regulated and subsidized. Leaving the oil market alone resulted in Standard Oil, and we obviously don't want that again.
- Straw 6mo agoStandard oil not only reduced consumer prices for gasoline, but was already losing its monopoly to competitors during the antitrust trial.
- jlebar 6mo agoI am not saying that there should be no regulations on monopolies. We are discussing a very specific market intervention, namely the proposal to > systematically [use] a pricing structure that charges disproportionately more for usage above high thresholds. This is what I'm arguing is a bad idea, by using gasoline as an example. If you want to argue that imposing this pricing structure systematically is good because it would help prevent a bad monopoly like Standard Oil, you'd need to explain (a) how this market intervention would prevent monopolies and (b) how it's a "better" way (according to however we decide to measure "better") to prevent monopolies than the alternatives. I don't see how this is true, though.
- thrance 6mo agoYour claim was: > Turns out markets are pretty good when you leave them alone. But when they're not left alone (as is the case with water today!!) you get some weird shit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy