Monopoly argument

Fellow Libertards, help!

I recently heard an argument that without regulation there would be monopolies. It goes like this: Firm with lots of capital lowers prices of it's product to bankrupt firms with less liquidity. The firm then purchases the firms and then proceeds to raise prices, monopolising the industry.

What are some counter-arguments to this?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=UY5Pqwww2TA
daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf
infowars.com/the-epipen-scandal-is-worse-than-you-think-what-youre-not-being-told/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Henry_Dow#Breaking_a_monopoly
youtube.com/watch?v=DQe8wohdCTo
graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/28974/why-are-apple-macs-used-so-much-in-the-graphic-design-industry
twitter.com/AnonBabble

There is none other than the assumption that humans will have a moral obligation to do so and there is enough competition to prevent monopolies.

It's why I moved away from Libertarianism.

What are you now?

Because if companies had to do it everytime there is a competition they would bankrupt. You can't sustain this forever. Besides people go for quality and not price most of the time.

youtube.com/watch?v=UY5Pqwww2TA

Nigga, wtf is this shit?

In principle, the public doesn't need a centralized monolithic government to hit corporations in the pocket book when they act against public interest. Basically, the communities themselves would have to disincentivize business practices that harm them. (E.g. organize a community-wide boycott. Get other communities to cooperate.)
Of course, this would require a population of vigilant citizens that actually cares about anything besides their immediate petty interests and aren't so used to big daddy government (ostensibly) taking care of all the crooks for them.

Amazon has been doing this for years on the hope that someday they will actually make money. Investors just buy into the meme and keep giving them more capital.

Yes, and your precious government regulators have sure done a lot to help that situation, or to prevent corporations like Google from nearly monopolizing internet search. I guess we'll have to wait until manipulation of search results somehow goes against the establishment's agendas.

Isn't this what Standard Oil also did?

Could you elaborate?

it's over your head.

On what part? I'm just pointing out that the government is never in a hurry to do anything about monopolies that serve its interests. For instance, Google controls over 70% of the search engine market share, so it has massive (although soft) control over access to information, but you won't see anyone doing anything about it because the establishment uses Google to shill for Hillary by manipulating what information people see via autosuggestions and search result order.

So people should get informed on search engine manipulation and expand their preferences for search engines?

A communist

That's basically my point, and it applies to all other forms of monopoly. People have to be informed on what's going on and keep corporations in check themselves, not rely on government bureaucrats to fix everything for them. I always find it funny how people who ridicule libertarianism using strawman arguments are basically projecting of their own laziness and apathy by implying that libertarians rely on the "invisible hand of the market" to magically fix everything the way they rely on the government.

These "monopolies" only exist and only can exist with extreme government corruption/collusion to preserve the 'monopoly' situation.

Look at the big retailer- Walmart. Walmart has multiple levels of competition, from Target, to online sellers, like Amazon, you name it. Walmart exists in a sea of competition.

Take the one monopoly that does exist in the USA- the "Epipen" (spelling) This retarded Epipen, which they sell at some retarded markup like three thousand percent markup or similar, only exists, because the company has a CEO with high-level connections to the Clinton family and another US high politician.

The corrupt Hillary and corrupt senator literally block European companies from being able to send us Euro imported "Epipen sticks" and also they have school districts pass laws that every school has to buy a few of these retarded medical devices ($600, for something that costs them Two dollars to make).

In a free market, Euro and even Chinese companies would instantly sell their own versions of this device, for hundreds of dollars less, to compete for this market, and this company with the outragiously overpriced product would go quickly bankrupt.

tl/dr the free market can fix it.

>I recently heard an argument that without regulation there would be monopolies. It goes like this: Firm with lots of capital lowers prices of it's product to bankrupt firms with less liquidity. The firm then purchases the firms and then proceeds to raise prices, monopolising the industry.

For this scenario-- Even if it could work within a nation (it can't) but let's say it did, and some company was able to eliminate all other car companies, in the US, and then he jacks up the price of cars, let's say the new car minimum price is now $50,000, because one company did grab the market in America like your scenario.

One day later, Chinese boats and Korean boats and German car companies boats would arrive here full of cars for ten, twenty thousand dollars, like they normally do, and this "monopoly" company, who drove up all their prices to super-high prices would go quickly bankrupt. This basically happened to GM and Chrysler, when they kept making shittier and shittier cars. People stopped buying them, when quality import cars were available. (the free market solved it)

It's not a realistic argument for a number of reasons. For one, the amount of firms to exist is not finite. Maybe Firm A lowers prices in an attempt to bankrupt Firm B, but maybe Firm C buys out Firm B with a better offer than Firm A.
Also, the argument would only make sense if the companies in question all make the exact same product in the exact same area with the same logistics networks. Basically they would have to be identical companies for this argument to work. But that's not the case in reality. Company B could have lower production or transport or development costs than company A, and could therfore sustain a lower price more easily. Company B could also sell a variety of products or services that company A does not offer. So company B would not be affected as much by price meddling.

Then there is the issue of profit margins. Companies try to turn a profit and try to have marges as high as possible. But they use that profit to expand and invest, it's not just sitting around somewhere. So if a company would decide to drastically cut its prices (and it's profit margin), it would not only lose profit temporarily, it would also lose opportunities to invest and expand, ultimately posing a great risk to mid and long term profits and also losing potential capital that it could have saved up for bad times.

And even if company A would succeed in bankrupting company B, it would then have to buy a bankrupt company and their debt. And then they would still have to deal with company C, D and E, who sold other services and were not affected by company As sheme.

So basically, the argument is nothing but a strawmen that falls apart under any economic scrutiny.

These arguments don't really address cases like my example with Google monopolizing things like internet search and online video content. It also doesn't address the case where said company acts strategically and maintains competitive prices and just continues to grow spill into other fields, gaining more power and influence.

You are right, and that scenario is basically happening right now, but after all, "internet' and things like online video and social media, are all just silly luxuries anyway.

I never have used Twitter, and now they have deleted Milo's account, so I know I never need to look at Twitter, because anyone with my opinions is banned anyway.

If Youtube does the same, and all they show one day is SJW bullshit and white genocide, I'll just click off that as well.

tl'dr I guess I don't care if someone can monopolize a luxury item. You could say Ferrari has a monopoly of sorts, but they deserve it, because nobody else can build cars like that, or create mystique like that.

> The firm purchases the other firms
Eventually they'll be too laden with debt to compete simply as that. Also the state is the biggest monopoly so one can't be against monopolies while simultaneously supporting the biggest and most destructive monopoly in human history. Without regulation there are no barriers to entry which is the achilles of monopolies.

>I never have used Twitter, and now they have deleted Milo's account, so I know I never need to look at Twitter, because anyone with my opinions is banned anyway.

You're a kike who gets ass pounded by negroes?

Access to information is not just a "luxury item". Surely you're aware that they use it to great effect to manipulate what people think. Don't you see that as a problem? Or do you think that the people behind a successful business couldn't possibly have any agenda besides making money? Also, you've ignored my second scenario where instead of shooting itself in the foot by immediately raising prices, the monopoly just maintains competitive prices and continues to grow.

Except economies don't work that way forever. Look at Microsoft and Apple, once their founders to they start to decay while new entrants innovate and take away market share.

Everyone used Windows but now Linux is on the rise and tablets have guided the industry in a new direction away from monopoly.

For your example to remain true Microsoft would have to be dominating smart phones and tablets but they aren't. Google is killing it with chrome books but there's still competition.

This only works so well because software and hardware aren't as regulated by the state.

Every monopoly out there today seems to have very large ties to the state.

From this evidence it seems that it you try to create a state with the goal of preventing evil in the economic sphere, the state is then absorbed into it. This evil is then protected and maintained by the state.

If the risk of free market economics is a large company, I would much rather go that route then a large, evil state which is fed by crony capitalism and utopianism. Moreover, I have a large amount of doubt about how far a company could go - the idea of it ever matching the soul destroying imperialism of the United States seems ludicrous.

I never said they're going to last forever. But they can (and do) more than enough damage while they last.

>people go for quality not price

wew lad. If this was true, most shit wouldn't get made in Taiwan, China, Mexico, and Vietnam. People will always choose price over quality, it's not even an argument. It's why companies like Walmart thrive despite all the negative press they receive because at the end of the day, people want to save money more than they want to stick to their morals

>- the idea of it ever matching the soul destroying imperialism of the United States seems ludicrous.

But you're assuming that they won't use their power and influence to bring back the state and control it just like corporations currently do.

Last I checked, Google competes with Bing and Yahoo and while Youtube is the most popular video site, others are propping up and taking more marketshare as Youtube alienates its userbase

In the absence of a strong state, it won't be long before the biggest corporation starts emulating all of the powers and functions of a state. Instead of the United States defending its economic interests in the middle east, it'll be Google.

Libertarians don't go against the concept of government intervention to prevent monopolies.
How can you have a free market in a monopoly?

you can tell your position is morally bankrupt when you come running back to Cred Forums with your tail between your legs to be spoonfed arguments that suit your preconceived biases

if lolbertarianism made sense, it would stand on its own

capitalism is an inherently jewish and anti-white ideology and you should stop defending it

It's not a complete monopoly yet, but it controls over 70% of the market and does massive amounts of damage with this control. As for YouTube alienating its user base... you're not its user base, so they don't care about alienating you. Either way, you're missing the point that some business models don't revolve around prices, or at least not prices the "consumers" (who are, in reality, the products) are aware of, and they're not geographically confined.

Because monopolies need government support to survive in the former of regulations and taxes that only larger firms can pay. You can't expect any company to magically have a choke hold because mommy government isn't there to make you play by some rules they made up

That nip flag isn't enough to hide your American butthurt. Enjoy your stay in Okinawa. :)

>corporations rely on voluntary exchange

>implying they can take over anything

not necessarily true, although I'd agree that most monopolies exist thanks to government support
it's a tried and true formula, low prices are set to kill competition and buy up the rest
most of the time this doesn't result in a total monopoly of course, but a virtual monopoly
in any case only the most extremist libertarians are against preventing monopolies
mergers of two competitors or price fixing is too much of a hazard for the consumer

they don't need to take over anything, they just need to provide military support for the foreign leaders that will give them good prices, like we do now

>the idea of it ever matching the soul destroying imperialism of the United States seems ludicrous.
Have you never opened a history book or read anything about the third world? There's places in the world today where companies use slavery and torture to cut labor costs.

Besides, US imperialism in general is a joke compared to what real empires used to do. If we handled Iraq the way the British empire did things, there'd be a lot more dead sandniggers.

Except corporations have been known to use slavery and pull tricks like buying a village's water supply and cutting it off if they don't cooperate. And as for taking things over, for example, there's areas in Mexico where drug gangs have taken over and murder any local officials who oppose them.

> How can you have a monopoly in a free market?

FTFY

own the infrastructure

>Access to information is not just a "luxury item". Surely you're aware that they use it to great effect to manipulate what people think. Don't you see that as a problem?

You are right about this too. Look at the new google image search for "European people art" (shows all kinds of black people and black faces) and I think google is doing a kind of retroactive white genocide.

I need to emigrate to Russia, Belarus or Israel.

Standard oil was never a monopoly. It was on its way down before it got broken up.

Monopolies can't exist, because markets competition decides what's the best price for a quality product. Without competition, a player cannot judge what to price their product at to get the max profit as technology and pracitices change.

Why are monopolies bad?

They aren't - unless they use their monopoly position to overcharge or otherwise abuse people

What is overcharging? Selling goods/services for something way way higher than the costs of delivering them (e.g. "high profits")

Monopolies with high profits do not exist in a free market. They only exist with government protection.

If there is a monopoly with high profits, it means that someone else can enter the market, do something substantially similar to what the monopolist is doing, accept less profit than the monopolist, and still make a profit.

The market should shift to this new upstart competitor who offers a similar service at a lower price.

own resources
own land
own access
monopolies are very easy to come into existence in a free market

How do compete against a power company that owns exclusive rights to build power lines in a city?

It's bad because they squeeze out the little guys. I want a different coffee shop on every corner, not a Starbucks.

Myth of the Natural Monopoly look it up. Natural monopolies can only exist fie short period of times.

>exclusive rights

Who gave them exclusive rights?

Government.

Governments _sustain_ abusive monopolies.

>It's bad because they squeeze out the little guys. I want a different coffee shop on every corner, not a Starbucks.

Why should the entire rest of the community pay higher prices to facilitate your preferences?

That's a flawed knowledge of how investors and the market works. By radically changing prices you will destroy your company and investors. That's why Nvidia does not lower the flood gates on AMD.

In your hypothetical scenario a company would rise up when they raised prices. In every Avenue there are businesses.

daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf
Page 19

Libertarianism is even more unworkable than communism

If there are no barriers to entry, after the initial firm raises its price new firms will enter the market.

>t. economics major

> own internet cables
> someone else lays new cables
> someone develops wifi

> own electricity lines
> lay more lines, make a different power station
> someone else develops solar power

> someone owns water pipes
> someone else lays more pipes
> buy bottled water
> collect rain water
> truck in water like business' do

Yeah, nah.
Inb4 muh roads.

>What are some counter-arguments to this?
This is like saying that the sky is blue and then asking for any counter-arguments.

???
Are you implying that people won't sell property rights in a free market? Which is more likely in your mind, that people won't sell exclusivity, or that companies that rely on infrastructure won't demand it?

Great point but I s that also an argument for globalism?

Free trade. Not necessarily "globalism/globalization".

Someone owns the land that infrastructure is built on. If you're a company that wants to build infrastructure so that you can sell a service, you have two options: a) own the land or b) own the rights to build on that land. Would you accept a contract that allows someone else to build on the land you're already building on? If you own the land, would you turn down an offer because the buyer wants exclusivity? Even if you would, would a majority of the people in your region?

>In a free market, Euro and even Chinese companies would instantly sell their own versions of this device, for hundreds of dollars less, to compete for this market, and this company with the outragiously overpriced product would go quickly bankrupt.
So you're essentailly arguing that un-restrained globalism is the solution. The problem is it would only work for a short time until a single company establishes global dominance..

your question doesn't make sense.

even if i want to "exclusively" do business with Comcast, I cannot buy or sell or in any way impact my neighbors property or desire to to business with Comcast.

If my neighbor doesn't want anything to do with Comcast, he doesn't have to buy their product, AND, he doesn't have to provide them any rights to put their crap on his property.

Governments overlay easements and other property confiscations to allow comcast to trespass. And governments tell companies like comcast that they 'own' every customer in a given area.

This

you don't have to be beholden to international organizations to trade freely with peoples.

Same goes the flip side as well. Would you sign a tenancy agreement that doesn't guarantee access to roads and utilities?

As i pointed out not all "natural monopolies" require land but the ones that do people have a demand for access and since there"s no state there isn't a monopoly on land above private property owners.

The only way it can be a problem is if someone tries to monopoly a circle of land around a town, first someone has to sell them that monopoly and second they have to enforce it.

Too many incentives and alternatives the in the way.

If you can't agree with your neighbor on one internet service provider, then you'll have to do without internet. You can't connect landlines through the astral plane.

I dunno maybe you could say that we live in such kind of world?

>walmart
>aldi
>McDonald's

They all kill small businesses in proximity, no small buisness owner can compete with those mongloids

Hell yet another alternative is for utility distribution companies. Ie. Build the roads and streets and then sell rights for companies to install X amount of power lines or internet cables through poles and boxes that the company rents out.

It would be 1. More profitable for the road company to have many people renting their box to lay cables to service people with internet. 2. Customers will demand the extra choices from preferred providers and 3. The companies profit from customers, they don't necessarily need or could obtain a monopoly of these services in order to profit.

These monopolies generally come about from the state falsely claiming that competition in these areas is wasteful as an excuse to cave in to lobbyists that want state granted monopolies.

It never works mate.

are you a meme?

i live on a farm. i brought my own wireless internet to my own property from several miles away.

try again

That's just wrong

Discounter like aldi, cheap but qualitative average products, they have cheap stuff not because the quality is shit they just buy it in such huge quantities that they don't need to pay such a high price as other buisness owner

Also discounter often tend to make theire own products
Example
>strawberry yoghurt
Let's say the average price is at 1dollar for 100g
In this cup you will find 25% strawberrys

To sell this product cheaper than the average store you need to get rid of some ingredients and strawberrys are the best way to do so

So you gonna end up with a 100g cup of strawberry yogurt with only 15% or less strawberrys inside

You seriously need to make up your mind dawgh, nice dubs tho made me reply

okay
build roads, water, and power that doesn't connect with anybody else's property, too

>What is overcharging? Selling goods/services for something way way higher than the costs of delivering them (e.g. "high profits")
>Monopolies with high profits do not exist in a free market. They only exist with government protection.

Exactly- case in point- The EpiPen scam. A company with a true monopoly in the USA, but this monopoly and price-gouging scam, is only possible through the CEO's high-level Senator father, and Clinton foundation power (She paid lots of bribe money to Hillary for these favors) Her political connections and bribed officials (Clinton) protect and provide the 'market' ie the government, for these overpriced medical products.

If a private, unprotected citizen were to truck medical equipment into a flood zone, or similar emergency and jack the price up 4,000% like the EpiPen, the government would throw them in jail for "price gouging". You have to have high-level political connections to do this.

infowars.com/the-epipen-scandal-is-worse-than-you-think-what-youre-not-being-told/

Being this autistic really shouldn't be possible. I've seen kids aborted for less.

say what you will about autists, at least they understand infrastructure

Amazon did this exactly to diapers.com

It's that how rockefeller got his wealth?

>So you're essentailly arguing that un-restrained globalism is the solution.

Completely false. You are confusing "globalism" with a nation's desire to maximize their liberty and their well-being, by engaging in trade with other nations outside their border. "Globalism" (a word with no meaning) is more some kind of buzzword for global one-world government, the loss of freedom and independence of individual nation states.

>The problem is it would only work for a short time until a single company establishes global dominance..

This is just a silly opinion, one man's opinion, not backed up by any evidence or any example from history or reality.

I actually did this in vanilla wow once. I sunk the prices on herbalism stuff so hard that people eventually moved on. I then started re-selling higher than he original price and quickly recouped my investment. It was done on levelling up herbs, which illustrates the point perfectly : when there's little competition, the market is very prone to manipulation. I wouldn't dare try this on a high level prof now. Especially with all the auctionator bots floating around.

Sure and a women understand how to cook that doesn't mean i'm putting them in charge of national agriculture.

>This is just a silly opinion, one man's opinion, not backed up by any evidence or any example from history or reality.
Why do you think a global monopoly is impossible.

>since there"s no state there isn't a monopoly on land above private property owners.
Not sure what your point here is because, like, duh? If there's no publicly owned property then yeah, of course it's all going to be privately owned. That doesn't mean that it's impossible or even unlikely that a sufficiently wealthy entity would be able to acquire enough land to have a local monopoly. If your argument is "people won't sell their land!" then you need some kind of evidence to back that up. If your argument is "extremely wealthy people can't defend their land!" then I'm even more confused.

In a free market (ie there are no barriers to entry), as soon as someone lowers their prices below the market value, those products are going to be bought up en masse by resellers.

Monopoly established on phones. Another company in Chicago decides to come out with a cheaper phone to undersell the the monopoly. The monopoly decides to lower the prices on its phone to a price below new company.
Sure the monopoly is losing money, but they are so big they have enough funds to last many years in the red. The new company has to turn a profit soon or investors will pull out. Eventually do to the monopolies lower prices the Chicago company can't sell enough phones and goes out of business. Monopoly raises its prices again. Rince, wash, repeat.

Do you really think that the consumers of these phones would happily endorse such aggressive underpricing methods?

What is stopping the Chicago company from just putting the breaks on until this monopoly company raises their prices?

It has been a long time since there have been numerous monopolies around the world, but the starting of Dow Chemical is a good example of how predatory pricing doesn't work.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Henry_Dow#Breaking_a_monopoly

I was up to your jew games, and bought them low and sold them high.

>Do you really think that the consumers of these phones would happily endorse such aggressive underpricing methods?
hold on
>checks to see walmart and amazon are still a thing
yes they would.

>What is stopping the Chicago company from just putting the breaks on until this monopoly company raises their prices?
Businesses can't just cease operations like that for an extended period.

It's not a Nash Equilibrium to do so.
Labor Unions are also a form of monopoly. So you make sure they understand this.
There would be incentive for the monopoly to split apart so long as there is no perfect price discrimination. (Just as there is incentive to cheat the cartel).
Which is why oil prices are going to stay low for a long time by the way. OPEC is trying exactly this, however once American and Russian companies leave the market, OPEC is going to have a very bad time when tries to make its members to stop cheating.

Monopolies are only possible when one business has some advantage over another business which the other business cannot obtain. It's government that create monopolies, by interfering with regulation they allow large powerful corporations to pay off government officials or fund their campaigns for office in return for regulation that specifically hurts competition.

The free markets destroy these kind of advantages because in a completely free market everyone has the same opportunities and competition can always arise to combat larger entities.

You can only ever raise the price of something to the next best competitor, if you go higher then no one will buy your products/services instead they'll buy the cheaper ones so its mechanisms that allow for competition that protect from monopolies and there's nothing better than a completely free market.

You could buy out other businesses to remain ahead but there's an infinite supply of businesses, someone could sell a business off and then create the exact same business again and immediately enter competition.

>one business has some advantage over another business which the other business cannot obtain.
we call that "private property"

Time is often ignored as a factor to leftists

Also newfaggot, monopolies aren't inherently bad

>Businesses can't just cease operations like that for an extended period.
In this scenario the shareholders of this monopoly are completely happy with operating at a loss for many years... I think it is pretty safe to say your hypothetical is removed from the realities of the free market.

>walmart and amazon are bad because stuff there is cheap
If a company is continually selling the best product at a given price then they're going to keep their customers.
Or are you trying to tell me that Amazon and Walmart are doing this perpetual undercutting where they don't make any profit until they have a 100% market share?
Again, I'm not sure if you understand what you're talking about. Having thin margins and moving volume isn't selling below cost-price. Consumer confidence and trust exists. Reselling exists. Alternatives exist.
Your hypothetical scenario is so far removed from real life I wasn't going to bother replying at first, but I thought asking you a few obvious questions might shake you out of it.

There's a minimum standard before price takes over though for most of the population

>What are some counter-arguments to this?
There aren't any

History shows that when a market is left alone, it has a chance of becoming monopoly driven.

Even when a market is regulated, companies work out ways to make practical monopolies instead of literal monopolies to dodge anti-trust legislation.
For example, the comcast and time warner cable situation.

>we call that "private property"

No, because anyone can obtain private property.

>okay
>build roads, water, and power that doesn't connect with anybody else's property, too

literally "muh roads". You are the meme king

There are plenty of privately built and maintained roads where I live. Same with water. And I don't buy my power from a company; I buy it from a rural cooperative.

Even if you believe that the last-mile-problem for utilities is a "natural monopoly" situation, there is no reason that those natural monopolies should be vertical. E.g. suppose a municipality decides to lay FTTH. Multiple IP transit providers can choose to interconnect with that muni fiber network to offer end-user internet service.

private property is something you have that someone else doesn't (i.e. land)
yes anybody can obtain land but they can't obtain YOUR land
that land is your advantage

The Comcast situation is granted by the government you dumb faggot

>history has shown
History has never shown long lasting, negative monopolies when the market is left alone

>Multiple IP transit providers can choose to interconnect with that muni fiber network to offer end-user internet service.
unless they all agree to stay out of each other's turf so they can keep prices as high as they like.

Sure.

But that doesn't stop competition from purchasing competing land. So while if you have land you have an advantage, the advantage specifically is not unobtainable for competitors.

yes it is possible for there not to be a monopoly, I acknowledge this
however, there is a clear advantage in owning both the road and the network, so a rational agent will seek to do so

"muh roads" is a meme because it's true

This is the awful fallacy of the ONE BIG CORP vs small start ups. In reality, giant firms will compete with other giant firms. Conglomerates will diversify. Competing firms will tend to settle into niches and reach equilibrium rather than this winner-loser monopoly shit.

so start your own ISP that serves the area.

>2016
>not being able to bring IP services to your friends and neighbors
>thinking you are any kind if patriarch

so your stance is that local monopolies will arise naturally given that private property is a thing, but not global?

nah walmart does it all the time with shit.

Not everyone has that kind of money user. And of course the large ISP's can just under price you as soon as your ISP is up and running and just wait for you to go bankrupt.

>muh roads" is a meme because it's true

you act like there were no roads before governments

You can read "The Privatization of Roads and Highways", by Walter Block, if you like. It's even available as a free PDF.

This happens, but not that much.

What happens is that a company buy another or two companies unite to make a bigger company.

Government is a monopoly.

there are different types of monopolies

they aren't necessarily bad things either

>you act like there were no roads before governments
Why do lolbertarians always respond with this when people point out "muh roads"? No one claims roads did not exist without government. They always point out how there's privately owned roads, like that somehow disproves anything.

>"The Privatization of Roads and Highways
Effectively impossible to build something like a highway without eminent domain. Do big government exists there too.

there were no privately-owned roads before governments

>What are some counter-arguments to this?
There are none.
Fuck off. This is a National Socialist board.

There are good monopolies and bad ones. Some people gain monopolies because they are good and do the best at providing that service. That is a good thing. In a free market if a business is doing shitty then another business is willing to take all the customers that business is loosing whereas a centralized controlled government business can screw up as much as they want and no one can do anything about it.

Consider people are frugal enough to purchase iPhones every few years, it used to be every year. Even now when the newest iPhone has been completely gimped (no headphone jack) compared to its predecessor, it's still selling like hotcakes.

Monopolisation in this regard happened before Android became popular enough to lower it down, but the fact still remains that Apple's control over America is readily apparently.

I ended my major in Graphic Design partially due to this, as I refused to use a MAC for my work (They're inferior products if you can build a better PC), yet you're required to have one in a Community College GADT program for fuck's sakes.

That is a modern monopoly over an industry, and even worse is that people are okay with it and actually believe the "Macs are better/Macs don't get viruses/Macs have better software" myths. Think about how much money Apple is making by being the prime and virtually only vender of GADT-ready computers. And it's detrimental to the entire industry as a whole, considering its now over-saturated with High School-age retards going to College of Creative Studies or the Art Institute thinking they'll have an upper middle class life if they make a bunch of classy soup can labels. Getting that iPhone in Middle School really helped lead to this, as Slippery Slope as it sounds. They naturally progressed to the MAC because it was a familiar product with a certain "luxury" element to it. It was cool to have Apple products, and in doing so became young artists out of it.

Ever wonder why everything corporate looks so bland and lifeless these days? Blame Apple.

My major concern with your argument is that a good company obtains a monopoly, then changes leadership and becomes a bad company that nobody can compete against. Just like monarchs.

Apple is does not have a monopoly on anything. Not PC's not smartphones.

>Ever wonder why everything corporate looks so bland and lifeless these days? Blame Apple.
Apple don't even target corporate markets.

He didn't even provide an argument. He just said some monopolies can be good. That's like saying having no jails is okay because some criminals don't reoffend.

>The firm then purchases the firms
And the money ends up somewhere. And the people who recieved the money can simply set up new firms. I know that leftists have theoretical explanations as to how an exploitative monopoly could emerge but in reality monopolies have only happened when state granted some companies unfair legal power above others.

SRSLY, just go through any case of a exploitative monopoly in history and you will find that it was the consequence of state regulations, in most cases it was state owned companies who had the monopoly.

It's not. Go suck a poe-tae-toe

>And the money ends up somewhere. And the people who received the money can simply set up new firms.
and how does that prevent the new monopoly form being exploitative?

youtube.com/watch?v=DQe8wohdCTo

I literally just explained how they have a monopoly on the GADT industry, are people in Italy dense?

No you didn't. You just said your college requires you use a mac. I know lots of graphic designers who use PC's.

All talks about politics and economics always remind me of this picture

On paper they literally agree on everything the only argument is who should be the one to enforce what they all agree upon

>I know that leftists have theoretical explanations
>theoretical

A libertarian literally said this. What is there to prevent collusion between larger companies in the same industry?

The new firms can compete

No they can't, because the monopoly is already formed. Jesus fucking christ.

I came into this thread to tell you how utterly useless and retarded the guy in your picture is and how half of his criticisms le witty ironicisms have absolutely no merit and he, and anyone else who acually accredits this guy with anything more than a blowhard attitude is a fucking moron that couldn't understand some of the most basic fucking plot elements that could possibly be shoved into a game for literal fucking plebeians and children

Like it could NOT have been toned down any more than it was, and he STILL doesn't get it

And why wouldn't they compete? If the monopoly is exploiting with too high prices who is preventing new companies to sell?

I think you don't know anything about how trade works.

Like I've said before. There have been no exploitative monopolies in human history during free market. Only as a result of regulation.

my favourite pasta

nice try potato nigger

>If the monopoly is exploiting with too high prices who is preventing new companies to sell?
The monopoly. Because if anyone new enters the market, they can just immediately undercut their prices and wait for them to go bankrupt.

The monopoly has shitloads of cash and can sell at a loss for a long time. The new companies entering the market can't.

:^)

Without regulation there is nothing barring a new business from entering the market. A monopoly is impossible.

graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/28974/why-are-apple-macs-used-so-much-in-the-graphic-design-industry

I grew up in this industry. People will claim there were advantages in the past, but they do not translate to today. The Adobe Suite also has a large monopoly on this industry.

I'm sure in Europe more people use PCs and Freeware, but consider that the GADT media industry is vastly different between regions. I spent some time in Germany a year ago and I was stunned to see Europe's main operating art scheme was reminiscent of the late nineties, for example, rather than the silky smooth Metro 2010 of North America.

Here, if you don't have a MAC, you won't be hired nor learn Graphic Art. I've freelanced for years because of it, as anecdotal as it is. But considering the GADT universally adores MACs and will not even fathom an opposing argument, you're bound to find absolutely no mention of my perspective anywhere.

It's "Mac" not "MAC"

also not a monopoly. You can get graphic design jobs without a mac. it's just rare. And you can certainly do freelance.

The only difference between local and global monopolies is to the extent that governments interfere with the free market by imposing import/export rules and alike.

Again the ability monopolize is controlled by the government and their restrictions, they use force to turn a free market into a non-free market and businesses can monopolize on that fact because they gain advantages expressly because of it. So if you're a business only able to sell to a small number of people in a small country and a rival business can sell to many more people in a large country, and exports are controlled or manipulated, then the company with the larger potential audience has an unfair advantage.

What libertarians want is no involvement of government in business which means there's no artificial barriers to competition between businesses which means the less likely we'll have monopolies.

>monopolies have only happened when state granted some companies unfair legal power above others.
correlation is not causation, and you haven't even proven the correlation

Because your monopoly company has infinite money? Kinda sounds like you have a central bank somewhere in there.

So, lets see. You have a huge company selling everything for a very high price all over the world. And now suddenly people start selling all sorts of things all over the place and you lower all your prices and start operating this huge monstrosity at a loss up until every single one of them goes bust and you just keep on doing that and keep on losing money.

Funny thing here, when you lose money someone else makes money and can just set up competition again.

Even if you hypothetically owned all the worlds money people could just start using a different currency. Yes, even the currency is regulated. Free market gave birth to gold standard.

Like I've said before. Never in history has exploitative monopoly happened in a free market.

If the company lowers prices to fight out competition, the consumer wins. If that company then starts jacking up prices/decreasing quality, a competitor will come in with better prices/products to force the original monopoly to clean up their act or be replaced, in which case the consumer wins by having more options.

See: Internet Explorer, Sears, AOL, Sony, Myspace etc

Depends on the scenario generally speaking the historical examples of this were coupled with slander. Take for example a stronger steel was invented that could be produced cheaper than Carnegie steel. Instead of changing prices at all he commissioned studies to discredit his competition then purchased the company when it went bankrupt. However this new steel could have toppled a monopoly the problem was an unintelligent consumer base. It is entirely possible. My favorite counter to those who think that monopolies are necessarily bad is that an environmentalist should want every industry to be a monopoly because monopolies optimize resources while free markets optimize prices. Therefore a labor unionized monopoly that protects the interests of the employees coupled with the resource efficiency of a monopoly should be the perfect environmentally friendly economy. Naturally once you pin a monopoly economy on your opposition you can rondos defeat them, because the public has a pseudo-rational hatred of them.

Umm, I was born in socialism. Here all the economy was state owned, there was a firm for every single thing and there was no competition because everyone would get bailed out. Everything was expensive and people were poor even though they worked normal 8 hours / day.

I am not going to go in every detail about how shitty the economic system was but I experienced it personally

>What are some counter-arguments to this?
In a regulated market the firms with the most liquidity simply buy the most regulators. They buy Senators and Congressmen, hire FTC and other bureaucrats for million dollar consulting jobs the day after they leave government service, and somehow get legislation that protects their $600 epipens or highprice/lowspeed internet providers. Before and even during the latest oil/gas price increase regulators allowed giant mergers that cut down competition and oil/gas prices increased dramatically. We went from 26+ major gas refiners to 5. Exxon/Mobile made record profits one year and the government paid them tax money instead of the other way around that same year.

Tight regulation only works when you can trust the regulators. When was the last time you could trust Washington?

nice anecdotes bro

What I'm trying to say here is that the state enforced monopoly worked so that everything was expensive compared to the salaries that the state enforced monopoly provided.

Every time a company actually tries to do this they get BTFO without government help. Read up on how a then-nascent Dow Chemical broke up the bromine monopoly.

It's not an anecdote if it's always been true

youre welcome

SRSLY, I'm not going to take time with arguing on le internetz anymore

His anecdotes are backed up with the statistical facts of the welfare of central planning citizenry. Don't be so block headed to not understand that although anecdoctal in presentation his position has grounding in reality.

anecdotes are not necessarily false, they're worthless for other reasons

>What are some counter-arguments to this?
There isn't one. Without a regulating body monopolies are inevitable.

then he should present statistical facts instead of anecdotes

>implying that's a problem for consumers
If the big firm lowers prices all the time to bankrupt their opponents that means, in general, lower prices for the consumer.
>but muh monopoly
Pay more for the smaller firm's products/services, then. You are also the market.

It is evident, the profound poverty of the Iron Curtain should be part of your basic education.

People always take libertarianism to it's ideological extreme and act like it's radical, when in reality it's just identical to the hardliner conservatives from 60 years ago who were arguing against FDR's new deals and Nixon trashing the gold standard.

that's one example, and all it demonstrates is that a mixed economy preforms better than pure authoritarian socialism

there's no evidence that an ancap paradise would do any better than either

Kek monopolies are allowed to persist through government protectionism. A real monopoly that caters to the masses well enough to retain its position in a free market is apparently what the people want. It will eventually come crashing down though...

Welfare capitalism, ie Nordic socialism is not tenable without daddy USA almost entirely subsidizing these countries defenses and also necessarily hedges them against future growth which is why places like Sweden has to import shitskins when its economy threatens to stagnate, so that old people and losers can keep getting their handouts. The hilarious thing is that these migrants tend to leech as well.

There are no counter-arguments, that's a perfect description of reality, stop trying to live in a world of denial and accept no system, whether libertardianism or socialism, is perfect and there is nothing wrong with a mixed economy

>Wants a government
>Is a libertarian
Pick one

Good answer.

not all libertarians are anarchists
how do you protect intellectual property without a government

You missed the part where monopolies raise prices after they have squashed all compeition. Monopolies are bad for the consumer user.

>Because your monopoly company has infinite money?
no, because it has much more than any potential competitor will have. That's the point.

>Funny thing here, when you lose money someone else makes money and can just set up competition again.
But there would no reason for them to invest that money into a competitor to the monopoly, because that is guaranteed to lose all the money just like previous companies.

None. Economic deregulation only creates uncompetitive practices and fraud. The 2008 crash was caused by that problem precisely.

Clearly you'd just have to hire a PMC to guard your property.

>You missed the part where monopolies raise prices after they have squashed all compeition.
And then competition with good prices come. The monopoly now has to either decrease prices or lose market.

For whatever product a firm is selling, they spend a certain amount of money to produce. These costs of production include materials, overhead, labor, etc. There is a price that they can sell their product at that matches the costs that went into making it. This is breaking even. If they can sell it for a higher price, they make a profit. If they sell it at a lower price, they lose money.

The price is determined by what a consumer is willing to pay for it. This is not to say that every person just walks into a car dealer and says I want that SUV for $1. The producer sets a price that he thinks will bring in consumers. Then consumers, seeing this price, choose to either buy that good or not.

If a large firm wants to drive competitors out of the market by offering low prices, it would have to sell its product at a loss. Otherwise, its smaller competitors could match its price and still turn a profit/break even. Now the larger firm is relying on its larger supply of capital to outlast the smaller firms. Thus the smaller firms run out of money faster and exit the market.

When the large firm is now the only dog in town, he can raise his prices and start profiting again. Except, without regulation, any firm can enter the market. Seeing the prices rise, entrepreneurs see this market is now profitable, and new firms will enter the market.

The large firm could try undercutting again, but this just starts the cycle over again. So what are the consequences of this cycle? The large firm loses money. There are a lot of cheap goods. In the end, the producers lose a bunch of money (especially the big firm), and consumers get a lot of cheap goods.

History shows us that one biggest of the factors contributed to the fall of Rome is hyper-regulation, over taxation, quasi-nationalisation, quantitative easing etc. all traits vastly opposed to free market principles

that's not contradicting anything he said

quantitative easing??

They had a fed?