How America became uncompetitive and unequal

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.

In some parts of the world regulation of corporate behaviour is an adversarial process. In the US it is often designed to improve the market for large companies.

(I also find it difficult to view a statement like "consolidation is the biggest problem in the world" as anything but lacking some perspective. I suspect you may like to revisit that idea)

Communism is defined by a complete lack of freedom to change the status quo. In turn, the lack of freedom to change the status quo means that development and progress is dramatically slowed, slowing down improvements in quality of life - as people themselves would prefer.

Consolidation only persists where it is either an effective way to deliver value (Walmart) or regulatory capture has occured (eg taxi licences, car dealerships). Todays consolidated behemoth is tomorrows has-been company - as long as the laws allow them to fall apart when they can no longer innovate and compete.

Inequality of income to me seems as though an economy is functioning well at the creating-value part. A lack of inequality (too much equality) is a danger sign that the creation of wealth and progress has been halted, most likely due to lack of freedom for individuals to pursue their own interests.

It's a misunderstanding to think that competition requires many players to be effective. In many cases, you only need two players and threat of entry to any others for competition to be successful at optimal use of resources. You only need two fighters and some contenders for a world champ boxing match to make them the best available at the time. And a fair referree.

I'll be the first to admit that the last part is the most difficult to achieve, but it's no reason to abandon the concept of the game.

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 restrains self-interest.

Only in perfect competition do we get Pareto efficiency--the state in which it is impossible to make any one individual better off without making at least one individual worse off.

Unfortunately, modern schools of economics have diminished the role of competition. Keynesianism lauds government monopoly power; while neoclassicism and Austrianism foster private monopoly power. Both are evil. The result has been a state of affairs wherein the vast majority of people are getting worse off.

WRT government intervention in the markets, Adam Smith would not oppose intervention that fosters competition and stifles monopoly. The goal of the 1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Act was to foster competition, not to diminish "economic freedom."

"Economic freedom" is a mostly meaningless buzzword that's thrown around by both libertarians and socialists. Indices of "economic freedom" as compiled by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal serve no other purpose than propaganda.

It's impossible to divorce politics from economics in the real world. Adam Smith understood this. The subject used to be called "politico-economics."

Today, the Left favors reforms to give government more monopoly power. While the Right favors reforms that give firms more monopoly power. Until people start to wake up and realize all monopoly power is evil and what we need instead is more competition, things will continue to decline.

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 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. To imagine that as freedom merges the Dickensian with the Orwellian.