Stunning. This is definitely an unpopular opinion. Very badly reasoned, but it is an opinion.
One question, do you think monopolies foster competition and progress?
this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2025
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I'm not sure this is an argument in support of monopolies as much as a demonstration of how monopolies are allowed to thrive and harm consumers in spite of existing legislation.
You allow monopolization, then the fact that they run things anyway isn't convoluted
I mean, I don't get a say in it. By some very minor factor one may argue that I vote with my dollar, but there are so many mitigating factors with regards to the intentionality of that vote, such as pricing and availability. Furthermore, as you pointed out, the monopolies are obfuscated. Maybe I swear to never buy a Nestlé product, but I'm unaware of every one of their subsidiaries and I don't keep track of their acquisitions.
Perhaps monopolies would be less egregious if the companies had the public good as their ultimate goal, but that will never happen as long as we have a society built around profit seeking.
Once the monopoly is in place, what's protecting said "reasonable cost for the consumer", exactly?
Absolutely not please read up on what economists have to say about monopolies, they are very harmful.
Thank you, Ronald Reagan
There's just so much blind hope in trusting a monopoly to play nice. They exist specifically not to play nice. Nestle is an evil company with ties to child labor, and has been sued for price fixing. So they're hardly an example of a 'good' monopoly.
Even if monopolies magically didn't price gouge us, they're a terrible idea from a strategic standpoint. You're putting all your eggs in one basket. What happens when that company completely screws up? That entire industry is broken. Look at Boeing.
There are so many real world examples of why monopolies are an extremely bad idea that you're either trolling or extremely misinformed.
Natural monopolies (water, gas, electricity, rail) either state owned or tightly state controlled - yes.
Otherwise - fuck, no.
And when they do (Microsoft anyone) they should be very tightly controlled to the extent of having the same responsibilities and transparency requirements as public authorities.
I'm not talking about natural resources
Natural monopolies have nothing to do with natural resources. They exist when the barrier to entering a specific market is fundamentally high enough that it's unreasonable to expect anyone to be able to enter the market and compete against an established player.
A couple of good examples would be utilities and ISPs.
I'm going to assume that no education in microeconomics have gone into this post. I've worked for monopoly and non-monopoly companies and, even without thinking about the very basic supply/demand graphs, I can tell you, pricing of the product is very different.
Here is s hint, price-point is very different for each. One will screw you over way more than the other one. Im not trying to sound snarky but please, honestly, educate yourself on the subject. Once a company reaches a monopoly status, price for consumer is very different beast than before.
The only monopolies I am somewhat okay with are natural ones. IE You invent an entirely new business that nobody else has thought of and, naturally, you're the only one in that market.
Becoming a monopoly through anti-competitive business practices is never a good thing.
The spokesperson for Buy N' Large. But your argument is more for transparency it seems. So hell yeah. Show your faces, you can't hide behind a thousand names.
Monopolies are allowed. It's only the ones that abuse their powers and hold on to their dominance through anti-competitive practices that are not.
Edited:
Completely misunderstood the post
Nah. They can't have obvious and consistent ownership of products or services. So they purchase companies that do the service that they want. It's still potentially a monopoly. Just has extra steps. If monopolies are legalized, we at least have a better view of where products or services are coming from
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.
Who owns the said monopoly?
US Treasury?