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Indeed if we could solve one thing with our gov't, I'd want it to be antitrust enforcement. For an ostensibly free market society we seem awfully willing to ac

Indeed if we could solve one thing with our gov't, I'd want it to be antitrust enforcement. For an ostensibly free market society we seem awfully willing to accept it being anything but.

kibwen 2mo ago
Free markets tend to produce monopolies. You know how economies of scale are a thing? That's another way of saying that small companies lose to large companies at scale. "Disruption" or "agility" is the only thing that small companies have going for them, but once the monopolist gets large enough they can just buy up any upstarts and keep the market all to themselves forever. This is why you require governments to periodically shake the snowglobe and restore markets to competitiveness... until the monopolist gets big enough that they just buy the government, anyway.
- pphysch 2mo ago
  Exactly. If you ask anyone on the street, "is it easier for a fast food worker or a business-owning millionaire to make their next million dollars?", common sense will prevail. Money begets money (and power). It doesn't require an economics degree to understand this positive feedback loop.
  - fragmede 2mo ago
    Wouldn't that be more of a negative feedback loop? My signals and systems class was a long time ago, but a system that throttles to extremes is negative, not positive feedback.
    - pphysch 2mo ago
      Nope, negative feedback is dampening and stabilizing. Antitrust enforcement represents a healthy negative feedback for the natural runaway concentration of wealth and power.
- Straw 2mo ago
  No, governments tend to produce monopolies. Can you find true monopolies in the free market, in the last 100 years, that have lasted for at least 20 years, without some kind of government backing/suppression of competitors? I only know of one. Things only count as monopolies if they have monopoly pricing power; Google is not a monopoly, they cannot even charge 1 cent per search. In practice, despite economies of scale, large companies age and become bloated, inflexible, etc. So there's typically plenty of room for new companies to compete. If a monopolist buys all upstarts, then that creates an even stronger incentive to make competing businesses! You don't even have to succeed in the market, you just have to get bought up! The more they buy out, there stronger incentive there will be to enter the market. No one can do this indefinitely- except with some kind of government support- say a regulation that makes it difficult to enter the market.
  - vjvjvjvjghv 2mo ago
    What you are describing sounds great in theory, but the real world doesn’t work like that. In more and more areas the obstacle to enter a market is not regulations but money.
    - Straw 2mo ago
      I'd say exactly the same about antitrust. Can you give an example of a lasting monopoly not backed by some government policy? At any point in the last 150 years?
      - vjvjvjvjghv 2mo ago
        Can you give examples of these government policies?
        Straw 2mo ago
        Sure. The most straightforward example would be utilities in much of the US. Companies like PG&E are literally granted a monopoly in a region. Another example would be epipens. There is a competitor, but unlike most drugs, if the doctor prescribes you an epipen, the pharmacy can't give you a generic substitute, it must be name brand. Tesla is being heavily protected from Chinese competitors by US auto tariffs. Credit Ratings agencies (in large part responsible for 2008 crash) have direct government granted status. Taxi medallions, Jones act, sugar tariffs. These are the ones that come to mind right away, but there's a whole slew of stuff- any regulation that's easier for a big business to comply with than a small competitor, for example. Even worse if the big business manages to influence the regulation to enhance this effect. Personally I'd guess Boeing is an example of this; yes, aviation does have high capital costs but I suspect that FAA regulation + Boeing cozy relationship makes it much harder for new entrants. Of course, this isn't to say the FAA regulation isn't helpful or doesn't improve air safety, just that it also has this effect.
m463 2mo ago
I'd like corporations (bodies) to be prosecuted like human bodies, where bad behavior was noted, you got a record, and punishment increased through fines, restrictions all the way to forms of incarceration, and even the death penalty.
- sellmesoap 2mo ago
  Alright, this week it's the marketing departments turn in jail, see you guys back here next week when it's HRs turn!
  - triceratops 2mo ago
    On the bright side, an ironclad excuse to skip the team offsite /s
    - perpetuallunch 2mo ago
      Maybe they could incascerate the plant and equipment. This week half the photocopiers are in foster care (prison). Next week, half the backup generators.
      - fragmede 2mo ago
        It's funny but a corporate death penalty, where executives had a lifetime ban of ever being an executive in a company ever again would go a long way.
        perpetuallunch 2mo ago
        That sounds entirely reasonable.
Straw 2mo ago
If you wanted to do the most to improve competitiveness possible, by far the most effective strategy would be free trade. Trade barriers prevent competition from overseas, making monopolies much easier to maintain.
- mathgeek 2mo ago
  Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Depends on the barriers to entry as an example. An effective anti-monopoly strategy needs different tools at different times.
  - worik 2mo ago
    > Sometimes yes, sometimes no. An economist....
- cogman10 2mo ago
  Free trade has little impact on monopolies. The biggest corporations in the US are international and the massive amount of free trade we've had from Reagan to Trump's second term has only resulted in these companies becoming even more consolidated. What free trade enables is for monopolistic corporations to take control of foreign resources to circumvent and undermine US labor laws. They'll buy the rights to the same crops growing in Mexico or Candida for cheaper than the US to undercut US farmers. None of that changes the price they are selling goods in the US and in fact ultimately results in prices going up in both Mexico and Candida.
  - Straw 2mo ago
    You claim that a law that prevents or hinders you from making transactions with certain parties, while privileging other parties by exempting them from these restrictions, doesn't make it easier for the privileged parties to form a monopoly?
    - cogman10 2mo ago
      No, I claim that we spend 3 decades of free trade and we didn't see corporations get smaller. Republicans and Democrats had a free trade policy since Carter really. If it were true that free trade results in more competition, then you'd expect that there would be more companies competing, not fewer. We see fewer companies. Your theory has been tested in reality and it fails.
stronglikedan 2mo ago
> For an ostensibly free market society we seem awfully willing to accept it being anything but. We were, but it has devolved into crony capitalism. I don't think it's too late to revert, but I do doubt we'll ever get our shit together and fix it.

Indeed if we could solve one thing with our gov't, I'd want it to be antitrust enforcement. For an ostensibly free market society we seem awfully willing to accept it being anything but.

kibwen 2mo ago

Free markets tend to produce monopolies. You know how economies of scale are a thing? That's another way of saying that small companies lose to large companies at scale. "Disruption" or "agility" is the only thing that small companies have going for them, but once the monopolist gets large enough they can just buy up any upstarts and keep the market all to themselves forever. This is why you require governments to periodically shake the snowglobe and restore markets to competitiveness... until the monopolist gets big enough that they just buy the government, anyway.

pphysch 2mo ago
Exactly. If you ask anyone on the street, "is it easier for a fast food worker or a business-owning millionaire to make their next million dollars?", common sense will prevail. Money begets money (and power). It doesn't require an economics degree to understand this positive feedback loop.
- fragmede 2mo ago
  Wouldn't that be more of a negative feedback loop? My signals and systems class was a long time ago, but a system that throttles to extremes is negative, not positive feedback.
  - pphysch 2mo ago
    Nope, negative feedback is dampening and stabilizing. Antitrust enforcement represents a healthy negative feedback for the natural runaway concentration of wealth and power.
Straw 2mo ago
No, governments tend to produce monopolies. Can you find true monopolies in the free market, in the last 100 years, that have lasted for at least 20 years, without some kind of government backing/suppression of competitors? I only know of one. Things only count as monopolies if they have monopoly pricing power; Google is not a monopoly, they cannot even charge 1 cent per search. In practice, despite economies of scale, large companies age and become bloated, inflexible, etc. So there's typically plenty of room for new companies to compete. If a monopolist buys all upstarts, then that creates an even stronger incentive to make competing businesses! You don't even have to succeed in the market, you just have to get bought up! The more they buy out, there stronger incentive there will be to enter the market. No one can do this indefinitely- except with some kind of government support- say a regulation that makes it difficult to enter the market.
- vjvjvjvjghv 2mo ago
  What you are describing sounds great in theory, but the real world doesn’t work like that. In more and more areas the obstacle to enter a market is not regulations but money.
  - Straw 2mo ago
    I'd say exactly the same about antitrust. Can you give an example of a lasting monopoly not backed by some government policy? At any point in the last 150 years?
    - vjvjvjvjghv 2mo ago
      Can you give examples of these government policies?
      - Straw 2mo ago
        Sure. The most straightforward example would be utilities in much of the US. Companies like PG&E are literally granted a monopoly in a region. Another example would be epipens. There is a competitor, but unlike most drugs, if the doctor prescribes you an epipen, the pharmacy can't give you a generic substitute, it must be name brand. Tesla is being heavily protected from Chinese competitors by US auto tariffs. Credit Ratings agencies (in large part responsible for 2008 crash) have direct government granted status. Taxi medallions, Jones act, sugar tariffs. These are the ones that come to mind right away, but there's a whole slew of stuff- any regulation that's easier for a big business to comply with than a small competitor, for example. Even worse if the big business manages to influence the regulation to enhance this effect. Personally I'd guess Boeing is an example of this; yes, aviation does have high capital costs but I suspect that FAA regulation + Boeing cozy relationship makes it much harder for new entrants. Of course, this isn't to say the FAA regulation isn't helpful or doesn't improve air safety, just that it also has this effect.

m463 2mo ago

I'd like corporations (bodies) to be prosecuted like human bodies, where bad behavior was noted, you got a record, and punishment increased through fines, restrictions all the way to forms of incarceration, and even the death penalty.

sellmesoap 2mo ago
Alright, this week it's the marketing departments turn in jail, see you guys back here next week when it's HRs turn!
- triceratops 2mo ago
  On the bright side, an ironclad excuse to skip the team offsite /s
  - perpetuallunch 2mo ago
    Maybe they could incascerate the plant and equipment. This week half the photocopiers are in foster care (prison). Next week, half the backup generators.
    - fragmede 2mo ago
      It's funny but a corporate death penalty, where executives had a lifetime ban of ever being an executive in a company ever again would go a long way.
      - perpetuallunch 2mo ago
        That sounds entirely reasonable.

Straw 2mo ago

If you wanted to do the most to improve competitiveness possible, by far the most effective strategy would be free trade. Trade barriers prevent competition from overseas, making monopolies much easier to maintain.

mathgeek 2mo ago
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Depends on the barriers to entry as an example. An effective anti-monopoly strategy needs different tools at different times.
- worik 2mo ago
  > Sometimes yes, sometimes no. An economist....
cogman10 2mo ago
Free trade has little impact on monopolies. The biggest corporations in the US are international and the massive amount of free trade we've had from Reagan to Trump's second term has only resulted in these companies becoming even more consolidated. What free trade enables is for monopolistic corporations to take control of foreign resources to circumvent and undermine US labor laws. They'll buy the rights to the same crops growing in Mexico or Candida for cheaper than the US to undercut US farmers. None of that changes the price they are selling goods in the US and in fact ultimately results in prices going up in both Mexico and Candida.
- Straw 2mo ago
  You claim that a law that prevents or hinders you from making transactions with certain parties, while privileging other parties by exempting them from these restrictions, doesn't make it easier for the privileged parties to form a monopoly?
  - cogman10 2mo ago
    No, I claim that we spend 3 decades of free trade and we didn't see corporations get smaller. Republicans and Democrats had a free trade policy since Carter really. If it were true that free trade results in more competition, then you'd expect that there would be more companies competing, not fewer. We see fewer companies. Your theory has been tested in reality and it fails.

stronglikedan 2mo ago

> For an ostensibly free market society we seem awfully willing to accept it being anything but. We were, but it has devolved into crony capitalism. I don't think it's too late to revert, but I do doubt we'll ever get our shit together and fix it.