How America became uncompetitive and unequal • Hacker News Board

Re: How America became uncompetitive and unequal

#21

Post by brazzy » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 8:38 AM UTC

watwut wrote: post #18

brazzy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could not possibly be more wrong. Monpolies are the exact opposite of economic freedom and amount to a planned economy, except the plan is not even nominally for the good of everyone.

While I agree with you, I would point out that planned economy plans are rarely "for the good of everyone". Planmakers tend to enrich themselves and their buddies. I'm tempted to write never, but there might have been that one historical event when it went right.

That's why I wrote "not even nominally for the good of everyone" - explicit economic plans, at least the socialist variety are usually for the good of all in theory but not in practice. A monopoly-based plan would not even claim to be.

Also, I don't think the biggest problem with plans is self-enrichment by the plan makers, but inflexibility, the lack of good information, misaligned incentives and unintended consequences. And the biggest strength of a market economy is not the absence of any of these problems, but that they don't effect everything euqally and the companies that are affected the most just fail without dragging down everything.

Re: How America became uncompetitive and unequal

#22

Post by NoPiece » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 8:48 AM UTC

dougabug wrote: post #10

grondilu wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is simple : economic freedom. If companies have the right to merge, it's not because "right-wing free-market ideologues" think it is best for the economy, it's because it is their business and they are free to organize it as they will. Saying that only "many players can ensure progress continues" and thus prohibiting companies to merge is interfering with economic freedom in the name of "I know better", an…

Corporations are legal fictions. They exist through the power and authority of the State, their contracts are enacted and enforced through agents of the Courts. Corporations are manifestly not free to organize as they will. Is it economic freedom to have one choice for Internet broadband? For healthcare? Unregulated monopolies should supply us with food, water, power, and all other essential utilities/needs? Welcome…

Welcome to the age of thousand dollar a pill medicine. Every communication, location, every purchase, every mouse click or swipe duly tracked, recorded, and data mined.

You are exactly describing the world today, as provided by our big government.

Re: How America became uncompetitive and unequal

#23

Post by collyw » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 8:48 AM UTC

danmaz74 wrote: post #9

ivansavz wrote: post #2

This opinion piece articulates something I've felt for a long time... consolidation is the biggest problem in America right now, scratch that, in the World. One thing that I can't comprehend is how right-wing free-market ideologues can get behind all the consolidation. Cant they see that consolidation is just like communism? Only a competitive market with many players can ensure progress continues.

The absolute belief that the free-market will always correct itself for the benefit of everybody is very much like the absolute belief of communists that in a communist world everybody will work at his/her best for the benefit of everybody. In many markets, the only way to avoid monopolies or tight oligopolies is with anti-trust legislation, but recognizing this is impossible for those who believe that all regulation…

Exactly. Too little in politics is based on evidence.

(I think) I would vote for the first politician to admit that they are not sure what the outcome will be. Unfortunately in politics, and honest attitude is not well received.

Re: How America became uncompetitive and unequal

#24

Post by collyw » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 8:53 AM UTC

leaveyou wrote: post #17

brazzy wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Communism is defined by a complete lack of freedom to change the status quo. Um, no. No, it's not. At all.

It's quite funny how little people know about communism, why it appeared, how it developed and what influence it had over capitalism & why it collapsed although less than 25 years passed since its collapse.

I find it quite amusing how people talk about communism failing, AFTER we bailed out the banks.

Re: How America became uncompetitive and unequal

#25

Post by leaveyou » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 9:00 AM UTC

leaveyou wrote: post #17

brazzy wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Communism is defined by a complete lack of freedom to change the status quo. Um, no. No, it's not. At all.

It's quite funny how little people know about communism, why it appeared, how it developed and what influence it had over capitalism & why it collapsed although less than 25 years passed since its collapse.

@collyw The original communism (the one "by the working class for the working class") is blue, cold and not coming back soon..

Re: How America became uncompetitive and unequal

#26

Post by willvarfar » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 9:02 AM UTC

NoPiece wrote: post #22

dougabug wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations are legal fictions. They exist through the power and authority of the State, their contracts are enacted and enforced through agents of the Courts. Corporations are manifestly not free to organize as they will. Is it economic freedom to have one choice for Internet broadband? For healthcare? Unregulated monopolies should supply us with food, water, power, and all other essential utilities/needs? Welcome…

Welcome to the age of thousand dollar a pill medicine. Every communication, location, every purchase, every mouse click or swipe duly tracked, recorded, and data mined. You are exactly describing the world today, as provided by our big government.

How would "small" government change it?

Being a European living in a country with a "bigger" relative government (as I understand the way Americans use the term) but with free healthcare and a big data mining debate ongoing, I'm a bit at a loss...

Re: How America became uncompetitive and unequal

#27

Post by dmitri1981 » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 9:08 AM UTC

Hospitals by their very nature are anti-competitive. There is no way that you as a patient can shop around. You do not have the necessary knowledge to compare the treatments, evaluate the options and decide on what represents the best value.

Re: How America became uncompetitive and unequal

#28

Post by ergoproxy » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 9:11 AM UTC

nhaehnle wrote: post #15

ergoproxy wrote: post #8

I have a different take on this article than most. I'm a proponent of Classical economics, and I reject all modern schools of economics--neoclassical, Austrian, Keynesian, etc. Classical thinkers like Adam Smith expounded how rational self-interest and competition together lead to economic prosperity. There's a balancing act going on between self-interest and competition--competition is the economic faculty that rest…

Keynesianism lauds government monopoly power; while neoclassicism and Austrianism foster private monopoly power. Both are evil. At least in the case of government, you may feel that it is evil, but it is necessary [0]. So the more pragmatic and productive approach would be to think about how this monopoly power could be used to further prosperity and equity of the people. Today, the Left favors reforms to give govern…

I was speaking specifically of monopoly power, i.e., the power to raise or lower prices in the market. And no, neither government nor private firms should have this power. Monopoly power is an example of market failure. In a competitive market, all participants are price takers, i.e., passive agents incapable of changing the market price. In perfect competition, in every transaction, at least one party is better off, and nobody is worse off. That all changes when somebody gets the power to set prices; then transactions leave some people worse off.

There are kinds of power besides monopoly power, such as coercive power. WRT coercive power, that's best monopolized by a democratic government accountable to its people. And government can and should use it's monopoly on coercive power to promote competitive markets. Instead, its been empowering monopolies.

But people today aren't well informed enough to make demands on government to promote competition or hold politicians accountable. They're given bogus ideologies (neoclassicism, Keynesianism, etc.). And they're given the false choice between Left and Right.

The terms "Left" and "Right" are not merely overly simplistic. They're total falsehoods, fabricated by self-interested parties to delude people into thinking they either need to give government more monopoly power or else give private firms more monopoly power. There is a third choice that's left unmentioned: Government can promote competition.

Re: How America became uncompetitive and unequal

#29

Post by spindritf » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 9:17 AM UTC

leaveyou wrote: post #14

Consolidation is also favored by cheap money (yes, back to money monopoly thingy). Above some threshold and especially if you are in good relations with a bank, it is far easier to buy your competitors and dismantle them by selling their assets than to compete with them. It's ironic how in the failed communist centralized economies, the economic policy was dictated by "elected" nomenklatura and it was BAD, while in t…

It's ironic how in the failed communist centralized economies, the economic policy was dictated by "elected" nomenklatura and it was BAD

It wasn't judged as bad because of nomenklatura, or rigged elections. Few people care about these. It was bad because you couldn't get basic goods. There were shortages of sugar and toiler paper. Not war-time shortages, decades after the war.

Which is why the current system will continue as long as it can carry out its basic obligations. American banks are a little behind the times but mostly because of all the backwards compatibility they carry, not scale-related dysfunction. Regular consumers don't feel that. They can still can get their credit cards, chargebacks work, fraud is policed, Amazon gets paid, etc, etc.

Re: How America became uncompetitive and unequal

#30

Post by NoPiece » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 9:22 AM UTC

willvarfar wrote: post #26

NoPiece wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to the age of thousand dollar a pill medicine. Every communication, location, every purchase, every mouse click or swipe duly tracked, recorded, and data mined. You are exactly describing the world today, as provided by our big government.

How would "small" government change it? Being a European living in a country with a "bigger" relative government (as I understand the way Americans use the term) but with free healthcare and a big data mining debate ongoing, I'm a bit at a loss...

A smaller government wouldn't have a $52.6 billion budget for the NSA & CIA to data mine.

A drug company can only charge a $1000 for a pill because the government is blocking competition by granting patents. Effectively creating a micro monopoly. Small government with extremely limited or no patents would allow competition to fix the $1000 pill.

It is industries like healthcare and telecom, where the US has both very large companies and very big government that we have the worst outcomes.