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Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

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Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#281

Post by nebabyte »

eberkund wrote: post #171
valuearb wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ISPs is an anecdote, economies of scale in most business means products are much cheaper if provided by large companies, so where is the cutoff between "monopolies" and simple economies of scale? The author claims 6 seed companies are worse than hundreds of seed companies, but doesn't give a single fact to support that claim.

You bring up an important point. I have thought about this issue a lot. For ISPs the problem is that companies tend to expand. So where 20 years ago an ISP might have been a small regional provider. Things have consolidated and expanded so now that same company owns almost the entire infrastructure and many other services that depend on it. They can also bundle services together to make it harder for a new competitor…

> For ISPs the problem is that companies tend to expand.

Not cooperatives. Co-ops tend to focus on their region, and have neither a reason to push into other territories, nor usually the foothold to do so as easily as in their own region.

"Farming out" your lines to outsiders then deciding that you don't want further construction efforts because 'the cables are already there' - effectively giving them a monopoly over your region - is what got us into this mess in the first place.

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#282

Post by nebabyte »

sanderjd wrote: post #130
skummetmaelk wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing though, that is exactly what a late stage "free market" looks like. What you need is a heavily regulated market that prevents exactly this behaviour. People need to stop wishing for the "free" market. The term is abused by orators and manipulators who prey on peoples desire for a market which is free in the spirit of the word, and deliver to them a market which is technically "free" and horrible.

This is just one of those definition things where the common amateur usage of terms differs from their meaning amongst professionals in the relevant field. The common understanding of "free market" seems to be synonymous with "unregulated market", but that's not how economists use the term.

Which matters a hell of a lot more than those professionals' opinion, as unfortunately democracy's current models rely far more on what the amateur 'baseline' knowledge is and not 'what the professionals know'.

As the professionals are probably fine bellowing off their ivory towers so they can later go doen as "having been right" rather than actually attempting to change things (except Lessig who iirc tried with a PAC), I don't think relying on them will get you anywhere. Better to analyze what the people think and why, and work to improve that baseline, than ignore it.

(Or come up with an alternative model of democracy which does privilege 'professional known' information with minimal corruption risk somehow.)

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#283

Post by tiatia »

cs702 wrote: post #4

"I started a manufacturing company in Little Elm, about 35 miles north of Dallas, to produce the first-ever automatically retracting syringe to eliminate the risk of nurses contracting HIV through accidental needle sticks. The syringe received rave reviews from nurses, hospital executives and public health officials, a major grant from the National Institutes of Health and robust private investment. But when my partn…

"A market in which buyers are not free to choose better products is not a free market."

Which is not the case here.

If I sign a one year gym contract and suddenly a much better, much cheaper gym opens across the street, I can whine that the gym market is "not free". In fact it is, not like "free" in "free beer" but in "free" like in "freedom". But if I insist of using the better gym instantly I may have to pay for two gyms at the same time.

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#284

Post by enraged_camel »

nebabyte wrote: post #279
enraged_camel wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Yes, regulations aren't perfect. Yes, regulatory capture is a problem. Neither of those things is a reason to not have regulations. >>that corrupting it with noise will have negligable effect on efficiency and technological development What really hurts efficiency and technological development is monopolies. A company that is a monopoly has very little reason to innovate. We se…

He's not arguing for perfect, he's arguing for sustainable. No system of regulations you build won't eventually be corrupted because (exactly as he says) there exists no neutral desireless arbiters in our world to enforce them. No system of regulations you build WON'T get you back here eventually. [0] [0] https://youtube.com/watch?v=2It2HRGGtCk

>>No system of regulations you build won't eventually be corrupted because (exactly as he says) there exists no neutral desireless arbiters in our world to enforce them.

I don't believe that. Al Capone was notorious for bribing the police and the judges, or intimidating them and their families if bribery failed, to the point where many people thought he was invincible. That turned out to be incorrect:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untouchables_(law_enforcement)

There exist people in the world with strong moral standards and fearless attitudes. We just need to identify them and put them in the right positions.

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#285

Post by mdpopescu »

jonas21 wrote: post #238
shmerl wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does: > One view is that a free market is a system in which the prices for goods and services are determined by the open market and consumers, in which the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority. That's how I define it. Monopoly makes the market non free.

"free from any intervention by a government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority" But here's the thing... if there ends up being a monopoly, who exactly is going to intervene to stop it, if not the government or other authority?

Competition.

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#286

Post by jonathankoren »

jpindar wrote: post #182
arrosenberg wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart. Walmart has destroyed thousands of businesses. Now you can argue the consumer got lower prices, but low prices don't matter when no one has money to afford them. Additionally, those economies of scale produced cheap, disposable, polluting goods that have an engineered lifetime so that customers have to keep buying the same appliance (or whatever) over and over. The question isn't when economies of scale hurt…

How does Wal-mart stay in business if "no one has money to afford them"?

Easy. Food stamps.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconn...

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/04/walm...

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#287

Post by kazagistar »

ericHosick wrote: post #269
jaredklewis wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you say is true much of the time, but it is also true that consumers often do "choose" their arbiter. The aforementioned adhesion contracts often stipulate a private (non-government) arbiter, which the consumer (probably you, too) consents to of their own free will. I see your points. But I kind of feel like we were having a rather nuts and bolts discussion about how to improve security in Linux, and then someon…

> If achieving a free market requires a complete upheaval of all of our governments and laws, then the idea isn't very useful. The idea is extremely useful: act consensual to others. There is no better basis of a social system than this. Having conversations like the one were having now is really all we need. To force the ideas on others in anyway, especially through democracy, would be hypocritical. A social system…

The existence of property is based on a non-consensual model for the purpose of utility.

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#288

Post by averagewall »

arrosenberg wrote: post #156
valuearb wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where has economies of scale hurt? ISPs are a special case because regulations make it difficult or impossible for competitors to run cable. But economies of scale turned cars, PCs, consumer electronics, air travel, etc, from rich peoples play toys into affordable products for the masses. As consolidation hit all those industries their products merely got cheaper and in most cases, far better.

Walmart. Walmart has destroyed thousands of businesses. Now you can argue the consumer got lower prices, but low prices don't matter when no one has money to afford them. Additionally, those economies of scale produced cheap, disposable, polluting goods that have an engineered lifetime so that customers have to keep buying the same appliance (or whatever) over and over. The question isn't when economies of scale hurt…

Destroying jobs is precisely how economies of scale and efficiency generally happens. If those other businesses kept employing as many people, products wouldn't get cheaper as much

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#289

Post by tim333 »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #274
tim333 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem in this particular case seems not to be too much freedom to buy and sell things but overreach by the courts. If some syringe supplier slips stuff into the small print that they will be the only supplier for ever after then the legal system should refuse to enforce that as is probably the case in most places outside the US.

> the legal system should refuse to enforce that What you're asking for is the opposite is the opposite of what you're stating the problem is. The courts doing nothing but enforcing contracts is expected. Asking for the courts to step in to say "while legal this isn't right and won't be enforced" is asking for 'more reach' by the courts.

Ok, I didn't put it very well but the solution to the courts protecting the syringe makers monopoly is for the government to change the law to disallow such things. A lot of these kind of things like business process patents seem to start with a court judgement and then need legislation to fix.

Re: Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies

#290

Post by tim333 »

wyager wrote: post #45
skummetmaelk wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing though, that is exactly what a late stage "free market" looks like. What you need is a heavily regulated market that prevents exactly this behaviour. People need to stop wishing for the "free" market. The term is abused by orators and manipulators who prey on peoples desire for a market which is free in the spirit of the word, and deliver to them a market which is technically "free" and horrible.

> That's the thing though, that is exactly what a late stage "free market" looks like. How would you know? We haven't had anything approaching a free market since the early 20th century, even if we ignore government-granted monopolies via restricted land grants and patents.

>We haven't had anything approaching a free market since the early 20th century

Hong Kong is often held up as a fairly free market that has worked well. The government does get involved in health care and the like but commerce is pretty free.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/01/hong-kong-is-worlds-freest-ec...

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