Do you not believe that a monopoly can be public or private?
I've yet to see any examples of monopolies with staying power except those which are protected by government protection/regulations. Absent those laws, competitors will always find a way to take market share.
That is why complicity with government is essential to a strong monopoly.
1. Sports organizations NFL, NBA, NFL, etc. are protected monopolies. Bad. Bad. Bad.
You have to explain what you are calling 'protected'. They aren't protected from competition. You are criticizing the absence of antitrust laws. You say repeatedly that deregulation is good so that's what they've done by taking away the laws but here you say it's bad that they removed the regulation because it can result in a monopoly. You just refuse to believe that this happens because of the free market even when you witness it.
How can you actively protect something by deregulating it?
Technically, we have few free markets. Free markets would not be regulated.
Competition good. Overregulation bad. The Federal government should be only as big as it needs to be to carry out its constitutional duties and all of the "extracurricular" B.S. it is entangled in needs to be stricken, defunded, whatever it takes.
You are suggesting that a free market as you've defined it cannot exist because you advocate at least some form of regulation e.g antitrust laws, patents protecting individual property rights.
Why keep promoting the idea of a perfect free market when you know it can't exist? Without trademarks, patents, copyrights, other legal intervention, the free market would collapse.
I don't understand what you think Martin Luther King's orgies have to do with net neutrality or free markets? You seem to acknowledge that Washington cannot be trusted by the inclusion of this largely unrelated subject? Maybe you just wanted an opportunity to post this story?
It was to do with government involvement in the control of communications, which is the kind of thing you are criticizing and I was pointing out that this kind of thing has happened for decades. I'm clarifying that this is a different issue from net neutrality. You have made a few statements saying to keep government out of communications but you have to clarify those statements because keeping them vague is designed to make people think of communications intrusion and China, which is not what net neutrality is about. This isn't the government trying to be like China, it's the government preventing private companies being like China.
You said, "Private companies won't naturally do whatever is in the best interest of their customers"... Well, Marvin that is exactly what free enterprise, consumer choice and competition sorts out! When companies don't give us what we pay for or want, they no longer receive our business. We don't get that with government.
You're taking infrastructure costs out of that consideration. If Amazon decides to screw customers over, how quickly can a competitor build up the infrastructure to compete with them when they've been around for over 20 years?
We're stuck with the horrendously misguided laws that are passed, the warring, the spying, and all the accompanying waste and corruption that goes with all of that. There is a universal human truth. All people are self-interested. It doesn't matter if you're a politician, a doctor, a priest, a student, or whatever. Everyone does what is in their self-interest...always! The smarter ones apply "enlightened self-interest" instead of bashing people over the head and stealing cars every chance they get.
I agree with the observation that people are self-interested but I don't agree that people's self-interest is the solution to the problems it creates. It's like the following movie scene where fighting to the death is the only option:
The problem should be apparent in that one of them dies. When there's a job opening and there are 70 applicants, the employer might get the best employee but 69 people go without a job.
That's not to say people should avoid self-interest entirely because it defies their own nature and it does have positive outcomes. There needs to be restrictions on it though because not everyone acts in a way that mutually benefits themselves and others; many people will act in their own interests at the expense of others. This was the theory applied to the finance industry and it failed because it turned out that the employees of the companies acted against the interests of their shareholders but in favor of their own interests. Your suggestion is always that they'll take their business elsewhere and that'll show them but it's hard to do that when they don't have any money left.
I've yet to see any examples of monopolies with staying power except those which are protected by government protection/regulations. Absent those laws, competitors will always find a way to take market share.
That is why complicity with government is essential to a monopoly.
Government involvement is not essential, the infrastructure costs or operational complexity can be too high for a newcomer.
And the issue of consumers (and other economic agents) operating [I]without[/I] perfect information, which all of this free market idealistic twaddle so frequently builds a straw house on the assumption of.
Comments
I've yet to see any examples of monopolies with staying power except those which are protected by government protection/regulations. Absent those laws, competitors will always find a way to take market share.
That is why complicity with government is essential to a strong monopoly.
It's not necessarily a government sweetheart deal, but an unwillingness of anyone else to go into that market because it'd be a unfruitful investment.
You have to explain what you are calling 'protected'. They aren't protected from competition. You are criticizing the absence of antitrust laws. You say repeatedly that deregulation is good so that's what they've done by taking away the laws but here you say it's bad that they removed the regulation because it can result in a monopoly. You just refuse to believe that this happens because of the free market even when you witness it.
How can you actively protect something by deregulating it?
You are suggesting that a free market as you've defined it cannot exist because you advocate at least some form of regulation e.g antitrust laws, patents protecting individual property rights.
Why keep promoting the idea of a perfect free market when you know it can't exist? Without trademarks, patents, copyrights, other legal intervention, the free market would collapse.
It was to do with government involvement in the control of communications, which is the kind of thing you are criticizing and I was pointing out that this kind of thing has happened for decades. I'm clarifying that this is a different issue from net neutrality. You have made a few statements saying to keep government out of communications but you have to clarify those statements because keeping them vague is designed to make people think of communications intrusion and China, which is not what net neutrality is about. This isn't the government trying to be like China, it's the government preventing private companies being like China.
You're taking infrastructure costs out of that consideration. If Amazon decides to screw customers over, how quickly can a competitor build up the infrastructure to compete with them when they've been around for over 20 years?
I agree with the observation that people are self-interested but I don't agree that people's self-interest is the solution to the problems it creates. It's like the following movie scene where fighting to the death is the only option:
The problem should be apparent in that one of them dies. When there's a job opening and there are 70 applicants, the employer might get the best employee but 69 people go without a job.
That's not to say people should avoid self-interest entirely because it defies their own nature and it does have positive outcomes. There needs to be restrictions on it though because not everyone acts in a way that mutually benefits themselves and others; many people will act in their own interests at the expense of others. This was the theory applied to the finance industry and it failed because it turned out that the employees of the companies acted against the interests of their shareholders but in favor of their own interests. Your suggestion is always that they'll take their business elsewhere and that'll show them but it's hard to do that when they don't have any money left.
The people are paying for internet but getting restricted services.
Government involvement is not essential, the infrastructure costs or operational complexity can be too high for a newcomer.