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No, because most of them started up independently at first. It wasn't until the oligopoly was established in which the government took over the expansion of railroad tracks.
And the government regulation which occurred in the railroad industry was mostly an optimization/safety standard than it was a "propping up" of a monopoly.
Steel had it's own regional monopolies as well.
A) Prove it.
B) I can almost guarantee that there was state policies in play that aided in the formation of these oligopoly's as well; such as, the issuance of licenses and contracts to firms with connections within government.
They funded the construction of the rail road, and they gave Southern Pacific 175 million acres of free public land. The Pacific Rail Act had very little to do with regulation and everything to do with granting a state sponsored monopoly to Southern Pacific.
There were always competitors. Even Carnegie and later U.S. Steel had local competition in the form of J&L Steel.
And this is all actually besides the point. I mean, let's even take your claims as a base. We have not yet seen a monopoly/oligopoly which has developed without government. Well that doesn't say that it can't. You may say that it can't, but it's not been demonstrated that there would be any amount of actual power to properly servo the system. There is no regulation, there is no oversight. And you think that companies are going to get along happy happy like in a manner which will promote, proliferate, and sustain the free market instead of collapsing into monopoly and oligopoly. I think it's as foolish as thinking that anarchy is a viable form of government. Sure it would be great if it was, but humans being humans; it's not. Nor is Lazzie-faire a system by which the free market can be sustained. Humans being humans, there will be immediate and unbridled push towards monopoly and oligopoly. And I'll bet dollars to donuts it'd take shape in such a way as to leave us yearning for the days of "state sponsored" monopoly/oligopoly.
Maybe. But initially all the railroads were entirely private and the companies fought each other for tracks, contracts, and business. Regions then began to consolidate to remove the bidding wars. Eventually government involved itself in the industry to take over the tracks for various reasons, among them was efficiency and safety.
Government funds a lot of ****. But the government had desire to expand the railroad coast to coast and so it did. Like anything, they turned to a private business already established and looked to have them do it. We still do the same thing now on many fronts. It doesn't necessarily support or establish the monopoly.
Aye, there were always competitors, but Carnegie and US Steel held their regional monopolies none the less.
Monopoly is control over a vast majority of the resources/business of a particular trade. Oligopoly is several companies coming together to make competition and product rules between them. None of these say that absolutely there won't be another company. It's just that the company doesn't have as much access to the markets as the monopoly or oligopoly will have.
And this is all actually besides the point. I mean, let's even take your claims as a base. We have not yet seen a monopoly/oligopoly which has developed without government. Well that doesn't say that it can't. You may say that it can't, but it's not been demonstrated that there would be any amount of actual power to properly servo the system. There is no regulation, there is no oversight. And you think that companies are going to get along happy happy like in a manner which will promote, proliferate, and sustain the free market instead of collapsing into monopoly and oligopoly. I think it's as foolish as thinking that anarchy is a viable form of government. Sure it would be great if it was, but humans being humans; it's not. Nor is Lazzie-faire a system by which the free market can be sustained. Humans being humans, there will be immediate and unbridled push towards monopoly and oligopoly. And I'll bet dollars to donuts it'd take shape in such a way as to leave us yearning for the days of "state sponsored" monopoly/oligopoly.
I voted for all of them except for ending welfare and amnesty. While an enemy of the police state, libertarianism still doesn't support flaunting the law, which illegal immigration does. Also, some basement level of welfare is necessary.
It was because of statist intervention in the market through the creations of various barriers to entry which allowed the monopolies and oligopolies to form.
They didn't just fund it they gave them 175 million acres of free land. Even if the competitors could afford to build competitive rail roads without governmental investment they would need to get the Feds to seed to them the public lands in the Western Territories which of course the state would not do as the government did not want competition because then they would have more trouble getting the bonds paid back by Southern Pacific. In a free market that unused public land would have been homesteaded the second someone invested labor into building a rail road track on them and there would have been much more competition between many different firms because no single firm could afford to produce the transcontinental railroad on their own without federal investment.
Once again J&L Steel was a regional competitor to Carnegie.
Monopolies simply can not form without governmental intervention, markets are simply to competitive to allow for sustained monopolies, that is without statist imposed barriers to entry.
Here's an interesting article on the subject:
http://mises.org/etexts/armentanomonopoly.pdf
Monopolies certainly can form naturally, but this is very difficult to do. The company must convince everyone that it that it's product is the best. Even with collusion, it's very difficult to fill up every niche of consumer demand.
I can see it maybe harder to start one up since yes you'll have to compete without government favoring any one side. But I also see it as easier to keep once you've obtained. And I see nothing which would absolutely prevent them.
I mean, I think a good example of your point is Microsoft. Right? They came in with an idea, a good idea, a marketable idea, and they blew up. Before you knew it, everything ran on Microsoft. Now perhaps it was all lovey dovey the way they ran; but with no government intervention Microsoft rockets past everyone else. Now they can be on top and what's to prevent them from using their resources, brand name, and power from destroying anything which threatens their base or to ensure their reign at top through deceptive and destructive market tools? Nothing. And thus the free market dies.
I mean, I think a good example of your point is Microsoft. Right? They came in with an idea, a good idea, a marketable idea, and they blew up. Before you knew it, everything ran on Microsoft. Now perhaps it was all lovey dovey the way they ran; but with no government intervention Microsoft rockets past everyone else. Now they can be on top and what's to prevent them from using their resources, brand name, and power from destroying anything which threatens their base or to ensure their reign at top through deceptive and destructive market tools? Nothing. And thus the free market dies.
You have to maintain your place at the top. Not impossible to do, you can still cheat people, but it's relatively difficult to do over the long run.
Apple
In response to Microsoft, Linux based OS are out there, as is Apple. Mozilla is overtaking Internet Explorer. There is no such thing as a permanent monopoly except for those supported by the government. You have to remain the best in order to stay at the top.
Why? I see it as the opposite. Once you're on the top, you've aggregated most of the supply, production, etc. for that particular market. It's easy to control it, it's easy to prevent access to it. Furthermore, you have the resources available for deceptive practices and predatory pricing techniques; what prevents you from going down that path? I think once established, with no regulation or oversight, it's much much easier to stay on top
Apple has been around for a long time, but they were unable to stop the monopolization of OS that Microsoft accomplished. And they can compete better now because the government came down on Microsoft, broke it up. There was regulation and oversight. What if there were none? Would Apple still be around? Would it be as "big" as it is now? I don't think so.
Besides, Apple sucks.
And then consumer demand changes, someone comes up with a better way to do things, or you just get complacent. It does happen quite often.
Apple still had to do well on its own. Linux also came into the picture. In the long run, monopolization is very difficult to maintain.
No dispute there. I contribute to Microsoft's near dominance myself, because it doesn't suck. If you can get a large chunk of consumer demand by not sucking, then in my opinion, God bless ya.
Indeed, and I would love to do things solely through consumer demand. But that takes responsible, educated consumerism. And honestly, take a look around at this country and tell me that this is something that is realistically feasible. So if we're going to talk about what likely will happen, them most likely thing is that there will be no responsible, educated consumerism and the monopolies will have easy time holding on. You can argue that we'll get what we deserve, and on some level that is certainly true. Yet it's a less than satisfactory answer.
But remember, back in the day Apple was circling the drain. The only Apple I ever owned was an Apple 2 C. Learned to program in basic on it. Had Microsoft been allowed to, they would have pushed Apple over the cliff. But they are restricted in their marketing and aggregated resource so they couldn't. Thus Apple survived and held on long enough to capture some of the upcoming techs to successfully compete and participate in the market. Thanks to oversight and regulation.
There's always that too, I really think that mostly fits Windows. But now so few people use Macs and such that there aren't even any viruses for it.
I think that monopoly and oligopoly will form regardless if there isn't proper oversight and regulation. Can it occur with government help? Hell yes it can. Very easily. We currently have a very similar form of capitalism now, corporate capitalism which is in fact supported and proliferated through the State. I am not saying that it can't happen, that the government can't act improperly or that the government cannot encourage monopoly. I'm saying that monopoly doesn't necessarily need government to form.
But people are saying monopoly takes the State, I don't see how that's true.
They existed, yes. They "competed" against Carnegie. But not on large scale, and they did not own as much of the supply and processing power that Carnegie held. They simply couldn't fully compete against Carnegie. They can establish a little niche, yes. And even with monopoly or even oligopoly, there is nothing which says a niche cannot be developed.
I remain unconvinced. You've basically told me that monopoly cannot form without government intervention because of magic.
I don't buy it. Why? What is they dynamic? What prevents a company from taking too much, what prevents them from using smear tactics,
from using deceptive marketing,
from using predatory pricing?
Right now, rules and regulations prevent that. But without that, how do you prevent this? Saying "oh blah blah blah, competition" doesn't cut it. I need to see the actual servo which will prevent humans from acting like humans and that which can sustain actual free market capitalism. What we currently use to try to stop humans from being human is government force. We have fines, we have courts, we have regulations to ensure worker safety
and proper wages.
But lazzie-faire...none of that exists. So how do you exert that force? People aren't going to stop being people. And if you unbridled business to do whatever they want whenever they want it, they will act only in one way; increase profit. And they'll do whatever they can to do so. They'll have no choice. Now that you've removed all the outside force which can control that, how is it that in your ideal environment these things are controlled?
It's just like what happened in the banking sector before the collapse. Between Clinton and Bush, all proper regulation of loans and leveraging were removed. Some people knew the system was unsustainable; headed for a crash. But they could do nothing about it. Not when their competitors were out making money hand over fist. They too had to go make money hand over fist by any means possible. And they did, and they rode the wave to the breaking point. And now we're in a fine little mess.
No government regulation/oversight is just as bad as too much government regulation and oversight; maybe even more so.
I mean, I think a good example of your point is Microsoft. Right? They came in with an idea, a good idea, a marketable idea, and they blew up. Before you knew it, everything ran on Microsoft. Now perhaps it was all lovey dovey the way they ran; but with no government intervention Microsoft rockets past everyone else. Now they can be on top and what's to prevent them from using their resources, brand name, and power from destroying anything which threatens their base or to ensure their reign at top through deceptive and destructive market tools? Nothing. And thus the free market dies.
Microsoft has a 90 year copyright on all versions of Windows.
Anyone that tries to improve and sell a better/customized/different copy of Windows anything will be infringing on their copyright.
Microsoft has a government granted monopoly.
That's like saying that laws preventing theft give car owners a government-granted monopoly over their vehicle. IP is property, monopoly applies to markets
You can own a car, you can't own a non physical "thing."
Once you tell someone your idea, it is no longer under your exclusive control.
That's besides the fact that software is a virtual mechanical "thing" which makes it fall under patent law, not IP law.
Code is not a work of art, literature etc.
Common types of intellectual property include copyrights, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights and trade secrets in some jurisdictions.
You bring up literature below. Once you tell somebody your story, it is no longer under your exclusive control. Literature is IP just like all other forms of IP, and IP needs protection (for this very reason).
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