mistermack wrote:The fatal flaw in capitalism is monopolies. And monopolies are growing and getting more and more common. Not in theory, not in the bullshit that governments feed us, but in practice.
Nope. In fact under capitalism there are fewer and fewer monopolies because no monopoly can exist without direct government and legislative support barring competition. In fact, monopolies exist mostly in socialist and especially communist countries because the government owns the means of production and doesn't like any competition.
When you get a small number of giant companies dominating the "market", what you really get is a monopoly. They don't compete, they just "align". And nobody can prove collusion in most cases, because they don't need to.
Nonsense. That's just dominant market share, not a monopoly. You don't understand the meaning of the word "monopoly." It actually means "exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action."
All they have to do is watch each other closely, and do as the others do, and you have an effective monopoly. They can bump up prices, and massively increase directors' salaries and pensions, and their "competitors" can do the same, and nobody is big enough to come in anew and shake them up.
Why would they do that? Companies compete with each other for market share and there are plenty of laws against collusion and price fixing. There's no monopoly on earth at the moment, not even for diamonds. Just because there are a few large companies who can best serve consumer need through economies of scale does not a monopoly make I'm afraid.
The laws of supply and demand control attempts at monopoly because if the monopolists raise their prices to make additional profits, consumers buy less and competitors can undercut them and take market share away. Capitalism and free markets make it nearly impossible for any non-government monopoly to exist because there is always someone out there who is willing to serve the need at a lower price than a big company that thinks it can ignore competition and set prices where it pleases.
And in the end, if consumers don't like the dominant market share of a particular company (like, let's say GM) then they will buy from someone else and GM will go under...oh, wait, that's exactly what almost happened, except for the fact that GOVERNMENT intervened, defrauded the secured investors, bailed out the company and gave it to the unions. You want your monopoly, look no further than government because that's where they originate and are sustained.
If they try, they just get crushed.
Not if they can do it faster, better and cheaper. That's why Japanese car makers now hold a dominant market share in the US. The Detroit car makers thought they were invincible, but they weren't.
So true capitalism, with true competition, is on the way out.
Nah. Just have to keep government from trying to pick economic winners and losers in the markets and restrict it to it's appropriate role as policeman of honest trade.
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