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0 pointspydry2y ago0 comments

Competitive markets > Governments > monopolies

0 comments

I like this! But I do think many markets make sense to be heavily regulated, beyond just anti-trust. (For instance, my work involves wholesale power markets, which are heavily regulated by necessity, but in my view remain better than vertically integrated monopoly power providers.)

qudat2y ago

Government is the ultimate coercive monopoly; all coercive monopolies derive their power from the arbiters of force — the government.

kaibee2y ago

Governments are at least supposed to be accountable to their constituencies, monopolies are only accountable to their shareholders.

gottorf2y ago

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

function_seven2y ago

With all due respect to Mr. Lewis, this quote is crap. I have no reason to believe that the robber baron's cruelty may sleep, nor that his cupidity might be satiated, nor that conscience enters into it for that robber baron.

A private monopoly is accountable to only the owner. May as well be feudalism. In a liberal democracy, government monopolies have accountability to the people. When that is subverted or corrupted, it sucks, but at least there's a mechanism.

There's no such mechanism with a private monopoly.

esafak2y ago

Busting a monopoly is not an exercise in tyranny. Do you weep for Standard Oil or Bell? If anything, the US government is lenient towards monopolies. None of the 21st century behemoths have been busted.

wizofaus2y ago

I thought C.S. Lewis was an ardent apologist for a particular omnipotent moral busybody?

ironSkillet2y ago

^^ C.S. Lewis, for anyone wondering.

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