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UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism”

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Re: UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism”

#41

Post by dnautics »

programmingpol wrote: post #36

As a Republican elected official in a southeastern state, I have a front-row seat to what this article points at. The road construction industry used to be a great opportunity for small business people to create for themselves a substantial income. These days, all the companies in our area are owned by conglomerates, backed by billion dollar financial institutions. If you were to risk a million or two or an asphalt p…

How do you keep the big companies from making the contract awards process too difficult for entrant players. I've seeb see this, for example, in [TLA] contracting where in practice some players hire full time staff at 100k+ to even get all the forms correct.

And then if the contracting award process is too easy, how do you fix the problem of keeping fraudsters out and the contractors accountable?

Re: UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism”

#42

Post by makotech222 »

jnordwick wrote: post #32

Why isn't the conclusion that the political systems are too powerful then? Regulatory capture and IP issues are the fault of a political system that can wield too much power. The limited government people would seem to have a strong case that power should be removed from the political system since it is so easily corrupted. I don't quite understand how the answer to a political system easily manipulated is to make it…

Or maybe people shouldn't be allowed to be acquire so much wealth in the first place. We can keep the government powerful and effective, but remove the overwhelming influence that immense wealth has.

Re: UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism”

#43

Post by KGIII »

naveen99 wrote: post #38
programmingpol wrote: post #36

As a Republican elected official in a southeastern state, I have a front-row seat to what this article points at. The road construction industry used to be a great opportunity for small business people to create for themselves a substantial income. These days, all the companies in our area are owned by conglomerates, backed by billion dollar financial institutions. If you were to risk a million or two or an asphalt p…

maybe one day an even bigger company such as Amazon will eat the asphalt companies lunch then. Their margin is someone bigger's opportunity. Or maybe 15-20% profit is just reasonable and competitive with other industries.

15-20% over the proper amount, above and beyond their normal profit. That's not all that unusual in that space. I worked in a field closely tied to the industry. I'm amazed it functions as well as it does.

Re: UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism”

#44

Post by lovich »

naveen99 wrote: post #38
programmingpol wrote: post #36

As a Republican elected official in a southeastern state, I have a front-row seat to what this article points at. The road construction industry used to be a great opportunity for small business people to create for themselves a substantial income. These days, all the companies in our area are owned by conglomerates, backed by billion dollar financial institutions. If you were to risk a million or two or an asphalt p…

maybe one day an even bigger company such as Amazon will eat the asphalt companies lunch then. Their margin is someone bigger's opportunity. Or maybe 15-20% profit is just reasonable and competitive with other industries.

So is the logical end goal of this system to have a single company that makes all economic decisions as they use their excess capital to take over other industries?? That sound's like the end goal is not going to be functionally different from communism other than that the theoretical super company's goal will be to make its shareholders rich and communism government as least pretended like they wanted to help all their citizens

Re: UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism”

#45

Post by davesque »

I think this phenomenon is visible in the reaction that large corporations have to disruptive technologies or ideas. Take the music industry's reaction to efficient audio compression formats like MP3: to pretend they didn't exist and/or sue people who used them. There also seems to be a whiff of this in the telecom industry's aggressive pursuit of anti-net-neutrality legislation. In both cases, there are large industries or entities (with lots of inertia) that have enjoyed a long stretch of dominance and profitability. Then, they're challenged by an idea or technology. However, they'd prefer to simply keep making money in the same way they always have. Therefore, their reaction is not to adapt their business model, but to try to kill the technology or idea.

Re: UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism”

#46

Post by dnautics »

notacoward wrote: post #37
jnordwick wrote: post #32

Why isn't the conclusion that the political systems are too powerful then? Regulatory capture and IP issues are the fault of a political system that can wield too much power. The limited government people would seem to have a strong case that power should be removed from the political system since it is so easily corrupted. I don't quite understand how the answer to a political system easily manipulated is to make it…

Is the problem that governments have too much power, or that they place what power they do have in the service of the rentiers instead of the people? The more power you take away from government, the more government-like power corporations themselves will wield directly. What kind of world will it be when all essential services are provided - or withheld - at the whim of the already powerful? When environmental or wo…

No, the Soviet system led to feudalism for a predictable reason, that in fact was predicted in stunning detail before it even existed.

http://praxeology.net/BT-SSA.htm

Even if you claim that the outcomes are the same, you cannot claim that the paths are identical, that's just lazy argumentation that ignores the history of philosophy.

Re: UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism”

#47

Post by WalterBright »

jordanb wrote: post #31
WalterBright wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain this with Kodak.

I know you're being coy picking the example from your list where the market leader wasn't simply forced out by an even bigger market leader. But in fact we have seen a lot of consolidation in the photographic industry. Back in the days of film everyone had to choose from a select few manufactures of chemical film. but people who created photography had a wide variety of equipment manufacturers to choose from, and tho…

I can take a photo, post it on reddit, and get instant worldwide distribution. So can anyone else.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/

There's a long list of such platforms anyone can upload pictures to. Or they can make their own websites. Anyone can do this.

Sorry, I don't see any "choke point".

Re: UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism”

#48

Post by WalterBright »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #26
Mz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate?

Suppose there are three large companies that dominate an industry. One of them fails. Now there are two large companies that dominate the industry.

The reason they usually collapse is because competitors appear.

Re: UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism”

#49

Post by Mz »

WalterBright wrote: post #47
jordanb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you're being coy picking the example from your list where the market leader wasn't simply forced out by an even bigger market leader. But in fact we have seen a lot of consolidation in the photographic industry. Back in the days of film everyone had to choose from a select few manufactures of chemical film. but people who created photography had a wide variety of equipment manufacturers to choose from, and tho…

I can take a photo, post it on reddit, and get instant worldwide distribution. So can anyone else. https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/ There's a long list of such platforms anyone can upload pictures to. Or they can make their own websites. Anyone can do this. Sorry, I don't see any "choke point".

But, you don't make money that way. He is talking about selling photos, not giving them away.

Re: UN Study Warns: Growing Economic Concentration Leads to “Rentier Capitalism”

#50

Post by programmingpol »

KGIII wrote: post #43
naveen99 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe one day an even bigger company such as Amazon will eat the asphalt companies lunch then. Their margin is someone bigger's opportunity. Or maybe 15-20% profit is just reasonable and competitive with other industries.

15-20% over the proper amount, above and beyond their normal profit. That's not all that unusual in that space. I worked in a field closely tied to the industry. I'm amazed it functions as well as it does.

That estimate is based on the fact that since the last true independent company in our area was bought out by the big guys, prices for all subsequent jobs rose 15% - 20%. I'm all for business making as much profit as possible. I'm not against profit, I'm against predatory pricing that limits competition.
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