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An Economy of Overfed Middlemen

mattstoller.substack.com

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Re: An Economy of Overfed Middlemen

#121

Post by rahimnathwani »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #117
rahimnathwani wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

E-commerce isn't just about websites. If I buy a charging cord from a factory owner, how long before I have it in my hand? And how much will shipping cost? The fact that I can order a charging cord (or 10 different ones from 10 different manufacturers) and have them delivered tomorrow is innovation.

Market forces on a commodified, non-monopolized playing field should come up with all that innovation and bring us that charging cord faster and cheaper, and/or through a wider variety of curated market places and organic charging cord communities.

"organic charging cord communities"

I honestly cannot tell whether you're joking.

Re: An Economy of Overfed Middlemen

#122

Post by WalterBright »

8note wrote: post #112
WalterBright wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chernobyl hid the fact that the reactor was highly unsafe, because it was too expensive to fix it. So yeah, it was about money. Socialism is not immune to having things require a positive return on investment, and is hardly immune from forces that cause them to hide costs and risks. As for the benefits of capitalism, it's the only system that has managed to lift millions of poor people into the middle class and beyon…

I don't think there's such an easy attribution to capitalism. If anything, it's ignoring property rights when people become richer. If you consider the settler colonial projects like the USA, the wealth comes from ignoring the property ownership of the indigenous people, and then also the slavery, and the ignoring or intellectual property for inventions and arts. If you look at Europe, there's the extreme wealth tran…

What you posted is certainly the prevailing modern opinion. Looking a bit deeper, though:

1. if wealth comes from owning property, why weren't the indigenous people wealthy?

2. In South America, the indigenous people were pushed off their land, too. Why did South America remain poor up to the present?

3. How did Japan become such an incredible economic power despite having little land and no natural resources?

4. The American slave states were never particularly wealthy, and what wealth there was was erased in the Civil War. Literally burned to the ground. Slavery did not build the wealth in the US.

5. The GIs earned the benefits from the GI bill. It is not wealth redistribution. They risked everything for yours and my freedoms.

6. The Spanish indeed took tons of gold & silver from S. America. Do you know what happened? Inflation! The same thing that happened after every gold rush. The reason is simple - gold is not wealth. Gold represents wealth.

Re: An Economy of Overfed Middlemen

#123

Post by rahimnathwani »

dominotw wrote: post #95
jeromegv wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow people expect to buy straight from the farmers at the farmers market located in the downtown of a large city, ignoring the fact that the farmers do need to.. farm their land. Traveling with their goods back and forth within the city isn't really an efficient use of their time.

well if its called 'farmers market' then that's the assumption. Should be called 'random market' otherwise.

I grew up near a 'random' fresh produce market called 'Balham market'. It's since been renamed 'Hildreth Street Market' and, according to Time Out, it's "blossoming into a foodie’s paradise".

Re: An Economy of Overfed Middlemen

#124

Post by danaris »

pessimizer wrote: post #73
danaris wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many people who have been steeped in our hypercapitalist society for decades and have simply accepted its premises as valid, regardless of their stated politics as a whole. It doesn't mean that the source of this ultimately deeply destructive ideology isn't the political right.

You must not have heard of "Walmart socialism" or have worked for a small-business tyrant. Scale and logistics are good. I think they should be managed by federation (and through regulation), but I'm sick of having bosses who see my salary (rationally) as something directly coming out of their bank account. I prefer a little indirection and mediation in the relationship. Efficiency is good for everyone. The more time…

Efficiency is good.

Maximizing for efficiency is not. It leads to a variety of problems, including (but not limited to) a strong tendency toward consolidation of power in too few hands (thus leading to abuses), and fragile systems that break down when a shock comes (like we saw with the supply chain issues during the height of COVID lockdowns).

Re: An Economy of Overfed Middlemen

#125

Post by danaris »

fleddr wrote: post #109
jmeister wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many progressives who've come around to favouring mega businesses over "mom-and-pop" for: higher wages, stabler jobs, easier enforcement of regulations.. For example: Matt Yglesias

True, the most progressive people (largely just optical) work for the largest neoliberal monopolists.

I guarantee you, there are plenty of totally real (not just optical), actually-progressive progressives who do not work for neoliberal monopolists.

If the people you have seen spouting what seems like the most progressive rhetoric do work at such places, that doesn't mean they're representative of all people who believe in progressive ideology.

Re: An Economy of Overfed Middlemen

#126

Post by intelVISA »

carom wrote: post #91
count wrote: post #88

This feels like he's copying Stratechery, down to the stick figure MS Paint diagrams (e.g. https://stratechery.com/2018/the-bill-gates-line/ )

Ah, that is a distinct style. Do you think they commissioned an artist to perform such an exact copy?

The kerning on those stickmen... so that's where all the VC money went.

Re: An Economy of Overfed Middlemen

#127

Post by intelVISA »

bediger4000 wrote: post #70

If we didn't da anything about Microsoft ca 2000, we absolutely can't do anything about what Stoller writes about. Do we even know what Stoller's funding is? Propa... Material like this appeared around 1996 and continued to surface all through the Microsoft trial

The Gates deposition should be an art display somewhere, it could even be exhibited alongside antitrust's gravestone.

Re: An Economy of Overfed Middlemen

#128

Post by robertlagrant »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #114
robertlagrant wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are most monopolies not of government creation? Anything that has increasingly onerous regulations or other government requirements are the sorts of monopolies that need breaking. Any natural monopolies formed by just being really good at something and offering it at a low price are a waste of taxpayer money to try and disrupt.

Not all monopolies are natural. Those powerful enough to capture regulators are now a defacto government. The answer is not less regulation, it's a different kind to stop and reverse the consolidation of power. And benevolent monopolies can and do change over time.

> Not all monopolies are natural

Did you read my first paragraph?

Re: An Economy of Overfed Middlemen

#129

Post by lovich »

WalterBright wrote: post #122
8note wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's such an easy attribution to capitalism. If anything, it's ignoring property rights when people become richer. If you consider the settler colonial projects like the USA, the wealth comes from ignoring the property ownership of the indigenous people, and then also the slavery, and the ignoring or intellectual property for inventions and arts. If you look at Europe, there's the extreme wealth tran…

What you posted is certainly the prevailing modern opinion. Looking a bit deeper, though: 1. if wealth comes from owning property, why weren't the indigenous people wealthy? 2. In South America, the indigenous people were pushed off their land, too. Why did South America remain poor up to the present? 3. How did Japan become such an incredible economic power despite having little land and no natural resources? 4. The…

Point one made me hesitant but when I got to point five until I realized this was just propaganda.

Property might not be 100% of what causes wealth cause you know, gotta mix capital with labor, but are you really arguing that America didn’t benefit off the stolen wealth of other nations? Is all the land that was taken from them valued at 0?

Re: An Economy of Overfed Middlemen

#130

Post by bagacrap »

Centigonal wrote: post #7

Everyone from Sam Altman to Peter Thiel has been talking about this for years. Capitalists are very straightforward about this - if you want to capture value, find a way to plant your flag in some emerging market and get a monopoly on one or more parts of the value chain. Marketplace operators are especially attractive to investors, because the financials are really pretty - the marketplace provider doesn't own signi…

Aren't most of those examples famously unprofitable?
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