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Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

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Re: Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

#331

Post by WalterBright »

Apocryphon wrote: post #314
WalterBright wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about your local ISP. They usually have a local monopoly because they use the government to make competition illegal.

Yes, regulatory capture is a problem, but it's somewhat ludicrous to make a blanket statement like "government is the tool used to suppress competition". It's one tool in the toolbox, perhaps a significant one, but hardly the only one.

Health care is another example. The government empowers the AMA to strictly control the number of seats in medical school, thereby restricting the supply of doctors and competition.

Licensing, permits, etc, are all ways to limit and prevent competition.

Re: Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

#332

Post by jjoonathan »

WalterBright wrote: post #292
chrischen wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if you consider that older larger firms can use their position to artificially suppress competition.

The government is the tool used to suppress competition. This is why the solution of making the government ever more powerful isn't going to work.

> The government is the tool used to suppress competition.

Oh? Network effects don't exist? Economies of scale don't exist? Dumping doesn't exist? Branding doesn't exist? The only kind of moat in existence is regulatory capture?

Regulatory capture is real, but it's one of many tools that suppress competition. I can think of one single solitary competitive analysis I've been party to where we decided it was the largest factor.

If only fixing anticompetitive markets were as easy as "drowning the government in a bathtub" we'd have solved this problem ages ago.

Re: Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

#333

Post by WalterBright »

chrischen wrote: post #315
WalterBright wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about your local ISP. They usually have a local monopoly because they use the government to make competition illegal.

Could you give an example of this?

When Google tried to lay fiber in various municipalities, they failed because those municipalities would not permit it.

Re: Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

#334

Post by Apocryphon »

WalterBright wrote: post #331
Apocryphon wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, regulatory capture is a problem, but it's somewhat ludicrous to make a blanket statement like "government is the tool used to suppress competition". It's one tool in the toolbox, perhaps a significant one, but hardly the only one.

Health care is another example. The government empowers the AMA to strictly control the number of seats in medical school, thereby restricting the supply of doctors and competition. Licensing, permits, etc, are all ways to limit and prevent competition.

Again, I do not deny that governments have been used as a tool for monopolies to form, but it is dubious that they are the only tool used by bad actors, nor is regulatory capture the only method for anticompetitive behavior.

Re: Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

#335

Post by nahuel0x »

The law of increasing concentration of capital is probably the most successful prediction made by Karl Marx until now. Just another sample:

"Since the 1950s, food retailing in the UK has undergone a massive shift from high streets, covered markets and district centres full of small independent specialist food shops; grocers, greengrocers, bakers and butchers, to the domination of food retailing by the "big four" supermarket chains; Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons. In 1960 small independent retailers had a 60% share of the food retail market, supermarkets about 20%. Now the small independents share is reduced to 6%, while the multiples' share has increased to 88%.7"

Re: Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

#336

Post by WalterBright »

learc83 wrote: post #330
WalterBright wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about your local ISP. They usually have a local monopoly because they use the government to make competition illegal.

You need government to build an ISP in the first place. No private company would be able to negotiate with that many land owners to build out fiber on a large scale. And once a company does build a network, absent government regulation requiring them to let other companies use it, the existing infrastructure is an enormous barrier to entry.

> No private company would be able to negotiate with that many land owners to build out fiber on a large scale.

Before the government stepped in to anoint winners and losers in the phone business, companies sprang up everywhere and strung their own wires.

Re: Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

#337

Post by WalterBright »

jjoonathan wrote: post #332
WalterBright wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government is the tool used to suppress competition. This is why the solution of making the government ever more powerful isn't going to work.

> The government is the tool used to suppress competition. Oh? Network effects don't exist? Economies of scale don't exist? Dumping doesn't exist? Branding doesn't exist? The only kind of moat in existence is regulatory capture? Regulatory capture is real, but it's one of many tools that suppress competition. I can think of one single solitary competitive analysis I've been party to where we decided it was the larges…

> only

I didn't say "only".

Re: Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

#338

Post by gnicholas »

willcipriano wrote: post #306
gnicholas wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is nothing inherent in "basic economics" that postulates that fulfilling or fun jobs pay less It's called 'psychic income', and it is something that people will accept, to some extent, as a substitute for cash comp. This is widely cited as the reason that teachers earn less than other professions, and why garbage collectors earn more. There are a lot of people who enjoy teaching, and not a lot who enjoy garba…

>This is widely cited as the reason that teachers earn less than other professions, and why garbage collectors earn more. Looks like the median pay for garbage collectors is $37,840[0] and for teachers it is $59,420[1] [0] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes537081.htm [1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/mobil...

Is there any required credentialing for for garbage collectors? Teachers need to have a bachelors degree and a teaching credential, in most cases.

Re: Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

#339

Post by [deleted] »

dwiel wrote: post #270
seph-reed wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been playing with the idea of equity cash lately. Something where the more money you've spent at a place, the more say you have in how it is run. Not really sure of what way that could be done, but the premise feels right so far.

Is there a way a startup could set up this business model, or would it necessarily require all the tax and legal implications of a publicly traded company?

[deleted]

Re: Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

#340

Post by gnicholas »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #320
gnicholas wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should social security and medicare taxes apply to capital gains? Should these taxes apply beyond the current caps, which are a bit over $100k? If not, there would be very little impact since most investment income is earned by people who also have six figures of wage income. And if so, then we'd have to levy these 'taxes' (they're not quite taxes, to the extent that these are paid in exchange for later services/paym…

Why do taxes besides social security and medicare have very little impact? Taxing capital gains like income would have a significant impact. Federal income tax caps out 37% and california income tax caps out out 13%.

Because the amount you pay into social security and Medicare are quite large in terms of percent of income, if you make less than $100k. Of course, you later get paid SS or receive Medicare services, which makes it less clear that these items should be considered taxes.
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