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The "invisible hand of the free market" works only, if you have many market participants competing one against another. When a participant wins the competition
by leonidasrup 3mo ago
The "invisible hand of the free market" works only, if you have many market participants competing one against another. When a participant wins the competition you get monopoly, when multiple participants collude you get oligopoly, or cartel. Market can not solve this.
Historical examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing_scandal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC
- inigyou 3mo agoIf competition was economically efficient, it would happen. Monopolies prove that monopolies are efficient.
- bmicraft 3mo agoEfficient at generating the most value for shareholders? Probably. Efficient at price/performance of product sold? No.
- danudey 3mo agoYes, which means that we can easily see that capitalism does not optimize for a better world or a more practical market or a better product, but instead optimizes for extracting the maximum wealth possible from the market and consolidating it as much as possible.