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Monopolies should be allowed (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/unpopularopinion

31 comments fedilink hide all child comments

So hear me out. If there's a company that's willing to invest in controlling everything, and is willing and able to handle it at a reasonable cost for the consumer, then it should be allowed. It's not like it's any different today anyway. You have these super corporations that own the smaller corporations that handle various industries. Take Johnson & Johnson for example. They 275 subsidiaries. Meaning that J&J get money for every new product that occurs in the subsidiaries. You don't even know some of the things they're involved with.

And stunning number for a company is Nestlé which has around 2000 subsidiaries. So what's the point of anti monopoly laws anymore? They found a way, so why should they be allowed to hide who they own? The everyday Joe and Jane have already figured out that things aren't the way they appear, so I think we're on the cusp of a full truth era where subsidiaries are going to start being involved in monopolization. These companies skirted the truth for too long, and we as individual citizens should put focus on and shut down subsidiaries

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Are you arguing that imperfect anti-trust is worse than no anti-trust?

Usually anti-trust is based on proving market concentration and abuse of market power - so to prove a monopoly you have to show impaired consumer choice, and persistent supernormal profits / price fixing.

I don't know if that's true for these markets you're talking about, in my country medicines are mostly generically prescribed with govt price regulation for most common medicines. That mediates the abuse of market power.

As for food I think there are usually alternatives. I suspect there are market power abuses going on but more subtle ones in the wholesale / middle market. Most nestle type stuff that i'm aware of has readily available cheap alternatives.

Monopolies are already allowed under patent of course - so I assume you're not talking about that. Although I think patent extensions are maybe a problem that is at odds with anti-trust.

I'd be Interested to hear what the individual citizens can do to shut down monopolies though? If it's as simple as "don't buy their stuff" then it's not really a monopoly; or, it's a luxury in which case - meh, choose another passtime.