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Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

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Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#21

Post by JadeNB »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #18
akira2501 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny to see criticism of Matt Stoller's points boil down to whataboutism. It's okay to be right one one thing and wrong on another. It doesn't invalidate anything.

Ha ha, my dude, the two kinds of land use restrictions are the same thing. He might not be a hypocrite per se but it’s meant to illuminate that his position boils down to “I’ve got mine.”

> Ha ha, my dude, the two kinds of land use restrictions are the same thing. He might not be a hypocrite per se but it’s meant to illuminate that his position boils down to “I’ve got mine.”

Your parent didn't say "those two cases are different," but rather "it's OK to be right about one thing and wrong on another." That someone has a blind spot for matters that affect him directly doesn't mean he's wrong about the matter that doesn't affect him directly (though of course it also doesn't mean he's right).

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#22

Post by darth_avocado »

I’m sorry but isn’t this on the town itself? If land use restrictions are preventing them from having a second grocery store, then change the law. Monopolies will act like monopolies and its up to the local government to do something about it.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#23

Post by rogerrogerr »

Suppafly wrote: post #16
aliasxneo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean free market? Because I feel like land use restrictions are antithetical to a free market. In which case, your comment makes no sense.

>Because I feel like land use restrictions are antithetical to a free market. The free market sorta means that anyone is going to use any means possible to fuck over their competition, I don't see how this situation is incompatible with that.

“Free market” usually excludes the use of violence. Land use restrictions are backed by the government, which has the monopoly on legal violence and will arrest you for violating land use restrictions.

An average free market supporter would say this isn’t the free market working.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#24

Post by JumpCrisscross »

abofh wrote: post #19
aliasxneo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean free market? Because I feel like land use restrictions are antithetical to a free market. In which case, your comment makes no sense.

The owner of the land sold it with restrictions that benefitted them. That's pretty much free market in a nutshell.

> owner of the land sold it with restrictions that benefitted them. That's pretty much free market in a nutshell

This is an obvious grey area on the abrogation of property rights.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#25

Post by TulliusCicero »

These sorts of land use restrictions should be illegal. It's basically a corporation trying to act as a pseudogovernment, enforcing regulations on land that they no longer own themselves.

One could argue that HOAs are kind of a similar issue, acting like a pseudogovernment, with restrictions on housing passing on down indefinitely, even to new owners who may not have wanted to agree to them (but with housing being as constrained as it is, you may not always have a realistic choice).

As a general rule, prior owners probably shouldn't be getting a say in what future owners do with land. Why? Because land is inherently limited in a way in which most other property is not, which reduces the ability of new entrants to 'disrupt' the market by offering people more choice.

If my town only has one car dealership with shitty business practices, no biggie, it's not too hard to go to another town and buy a car, then bring it back. But I can't buy land and bring it back to use it, I'm stuck with whatever's already there.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#26

Post by JumpCrisscross »

rogerrogerr wrote: post #23
Suppafly wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Because I feel like land use restrictions are antithetical to a free market. The free market sorta means that anyone is going to use any means possible to fuck over their competition, I don't see how this situation is incompatible with that.

“Free market” usually excludes the use of violence. Land use restrictions are backed by the government, which has the monopoly on legal violence and will arrest you for violating land use restrictions. An average free market supporter would say this isn’t the free market working.

> Land use restrictions are backed by the government, which has the monopoly on legal violence

No, free markets aren’t equivalent to anarchy and every state action isn’t tantamount to violence.

This is an ambiguity in the concept of free markets, which is why we’re having a linguistic versus conceptual discussion.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#27

Post by falcolas »

epistasis wrote: post #8
forgetfreeman wrote: post #2

Behold: the Market doing Market shit.

This isn't a "market" doing something, it's a monopolist doing monopolist stuff. One kind of precludes the other...

Not at all. The natural end state of an unregulated market is monopolies. As demonstrated again and again throughout US history, with only anti-trust regulation bringing the monopolies to an end.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#28

Post by Terr_ »

aliasxneo wrote: post #6
forgetfreeman wrote: post #2

Behold: the Market doing Market shit.

Do you mean free market? Because I feel like land use restrictions are antithetical to a free market. In which case, your comment makes no sense.

> Do you mean free market? Because I feel like land use restrictions are antithetical to a free market.

Depends, should you be "free" to offer terms on land you own, and to "free" to accept those terms when purchasing?

Whenever people talk about "free markets", it often embeds a sneaky internal contradiction between (A) the freedom to operate without worrying about secrets and strange restrictions, versus (B) the freedom to create secrets and strange restrictions on others.

That pattern is a pet-peeve of mine: People will celebrate a "free market" as being theoretically optimal when everyone has perfect information about prices and deals... Then the next day others will pooh-pooh concerns over cartels, because a "free market" enables defectors to make secret deals with hidden prices. I wouldn't be surprised if in some cases they ended up being the same people.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#29

Post by falcolas »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #4
forgetfreeman wrote: post #2

Behold: the Market doing Market shit.

Behold: Market participants using government to disable other market participants.

In this case since it's deed restrictions as part of the land/building sale it's not the government enforcing these restrictions, it's plain old contract law.

Re: Albertsons kills rural grocers with land use restrictions

#30

Post by h0l0cube »

carom wrote: post #12

>In Mammoth Lakes, there are two old K-Mart lots that could easily welcome competitive grocery stores This sounds like Bishop, not Mammoth. Bishop is 30 minutes outside of Mammoth and is a little bit bigger. Mammoth does have two grocery stores now, for years it was just a Vons and now there is a Grocery Outlet as well. Bishop has a Vons, Grocery Outlet, and a Smart and Final. Both cities have some hispanic grocers t…

In the same paragraph:

> Vons started leasing one plot in 2019 when K-Mart went under, “holding the space hostage.” It now leases the other as well.

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