When did we start letting monopolies be created in the form of massive mergers, and more importantly why would we?

When did we start letting monopolies be created in the form of massive mergers, and more importantly why would we?

I mean, economists from almost every theory of thought hate monopolies. Small business doesn't like monopolies because they crush competition. Governments don't like monopolies because it's a challenge to their power. The people don't like monopolies. The only people that like monopolies are the monopolists themselves. So how is laws to stop them not the one thing universally agreed on in terms of legislation?

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>So how is laws to stop them not the one thing universally agreed on in terms of legislation?
bribes

Yeah but considering the nature of monopolies, shouldn't the fact that you're voting in favor of one be an automatic red flag that you'd been bribed?

WE WUZ STEEL BARONS

People never cared about politics that much in the pre interent era. Also you could control journalists, by you guessed it, bribes

That's why there's a system that exists to mask donations and create anonymity in donors.

>People never cared about politics that much in the pre interent era.
Yeah and we got better politicians back then. If anything the fact that we care about politics in periods beyond election time is what made people go so crazy about it.

There are different kinds of monopolies and not all monopolies are bad.

To answer your question, their are anti-trust laws that came about during a period in the late-19th/early-20th century when the dominance of classical (laissez-faire) microeconomics was waning. The laws were used to break up companies, sometimes to good effect sometimes to bad.

After WWII classical microeconomics started gaining new traction (see: the neoclassical synthesis) and eventually became the dominant line of economic thinking in the West. The result is that anti-trust laws, though still on the books, are used much less because monopolies and oligopolies are viewed much less suspiciously under neoclassical economics. For anti-trust laws to be invoked nowadays a much higher bar has to be met by anti-monopolists.

I think there's a healthy medium. We're nowhere close to that today

I blame the creation of 24 hour news networks starting this, the internet just expanded on it.

High fixed capital, low margin industries NEED mergers to weather business cycles. That's why you saw so many agrochem mergers last year.

>NEED

Then how did big companies survive before the creation of monopolies?

That is why it's called lobbying.

Which is more or less legal bribery

Monopolies are natural

Only natural monopolies are, naturally,

Doesn't make it right desu senpai

It's also natural for a monopoly to die or get broken up.

>I prefer to live in my fantasies and spooks

no wonder liberals are never happy

Name a monopoly that happened without the government having a hand in it

It's basically a rebranding of bribery
Like how Anglo Iranian Oil Company is now British Petroleum
>edward bernays.jpeg

Or how Philip Morris became Altria, Kentucky Fried Chicken became KFC, and I'm trying to think of a third one that's an utterly ridiculous change but the name escapes me.

Google's original name was BackRub

They didn't. Corporations had to evolve because trusts are the business entity equivalent of an ass birthed baby. The biggest companies before industrialization were monopolies granted by the government, so basically quasi-governmental entities.

Adam Smith supported monopolies in some cases though like the East India Company unironically

Because he thought it was an objective good thing, or because it was beneficial for England even if it was exploitative?

Black Water and Academi? Though they aren't really monopolies

the latter i think.

blackwater was rebranded into academi, not merged

Chester E. Moneybags III, my dear boy.

standard oil

Because of fat rich pigs who have never worked a day in their life and who wanna use the mainstream media to convince us all not to kill them and take their money

Capitalist economists are against corporate monopolies because they invariably compete at a material level with the perceived monopoly on force known as the State

>Governments don't like monopolies because it's a challenge to their power.
You could not be more wrong. Governments love monopolies, and nearly every monopoly in history was backed if not directly orchestrated by a government. The reason they love it is it is much easier to regulate, tax, and deal with a single company than to deal with many different companies. Simplifies things. Often how it works is the government will declare that one company has exclusive rights to a particular market so in exchange for the company providing some of its goods to the state at a fixed rate.

Retards have no idea what lobbying is. People who want to get rid of lobbying are fucking imbeciles.

If one doesn't let monopolies exist, others will. Those other monopolies will eventually end up dominating one's market.

>When it's more cost-effective for companies to invest in politicians to change laws giving them regulatory edge than it is for them to invest in production upgrades and higher quality labor
nobody likes crony capitalism.

nobody likes capitalism*

Diamonds

>De Beers would have had a diamond monopoly without British domination of South Africa
lmao

Monopolies arise from governments.

A monopoly in a free market is not something negative, but none exist today anyways.

>Governments don't like monopolies because it's a challenge to their power.
Governments are merely an extension of their power, serving as a middle ground where the megacorps can solve their grievances with one another without resorting to violence, an enforcement arm to maintain their position, and as an ancillary legal entity that collects taxes to handle all the things they don't want to pay for themselves, such as the infrastructure, military, and welfare.

From the government's perspective, it would be ideal if there was only one corporation to deal with - Private Sector Inc. - in that way they could maintain the illusion of free private enterprise, without having to deal with the turmoil that trade and capitalism create. Thus they could have a stable society with simple jobs, where their only function would be that of maintaining a smooth running bureaucracy to keep it that way.

...and really, they are almost there, with ownership concentrated into the hands of so few, and so much of politics relegated to meaningless rhetoric, where the drama plays out on stage, but the actual actions taken remain on much the same course as ever. There's only a handful of corporations left to take orders from, while the remainder are merely floating in their ocean, at the mercy of their dictation of the tide.

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Owned by, funnily enough, a Rothschild who also owns the Economist

The Rothschilds haven't had a stake in DeBeers for almost a hundred years now, nor do they have a majority stake in The Economist.

The Rothschilds, in fact, haven't had a majority share of any Fortune 500 company for over forty years. And the only billionaire Rothschild on the Forbes list is Benjamin de Rothschild, who was ranked at #1121.

It's all about the Bogdanoffs now.

>Monopolies arise from governments.
So do markets. That's like saying neurological disorders arise from having a nervous system, and weakening your nervous system would make you less susceptible to them when in fact the opposite is the case

Wait, is Ben arguing that the state should take all money you don't absolutely NEED?

Granted, I think only the rich payed federal taxes back then.

>markets derive from government

What are you smoking?

That's why you bribe both sides. Doesn't matter who you vote for, the monopolies win either way.

>markets can't exist without property rights
>government protects property rights

This isn't complicated.

>markets can't exist without propery rights

Not him, but it kinda works both ways. The government does indeed create new markets, because the government needs things done, often that wouldn't otherwise be done by the private sector, or at the very least, not at those scales.

More often, however, markets give rise to government. Whenever an area experiences enough trade over time, eventually, some group of merchants come together to regulate that shit, even if it's, initially, simply groups of the most successful merchants coming together to settle what's best for them as a sort of trade agreement, with some give and take along the way. No one fucks with the trade guild, save maybe, other trade guilds. Eventually, no one fucks with the Merchant Prince, if they want to do business in town.

Monopolies often involve no government intervention at all - most commonly observable in black markets. Mafias will dominate an area, make sure no one else trades in their market, and use force to make sure that remains the case. In some instances, mafias will actually replace other government functions as well, such as police enforcement, courts of a sort, and sometimes, even lotteries and welfare, as we saw during prohibition and still see today among drug lords in various areas where the government is weak.

The government is, however, the only legal entity that can prevent and dismantle monopolies, in addition to being a potential tool for furthering their interests. The private sector, on its own, can only accomplish the latter - it can create monopolies, but it cannot forcibly abolish them - at least so long as the monopoly is powerful enough to retain sufficient dominance over the mercenary market, such as with the olive trader families of old.

In the end, power begets power in gravitational fashion. The government requires a thriving economy to achieve its goals, but there's always a risk that it will be corrupted by elements of that economy, and corrupt it in turn.

Chicken or egg, eventually, chicken.

>Nail trust
Was there really at some point a monopoly on fucking nails?

Apparently they fucked with the oil drilling industry by jacking up the price of nails.

Yep. There is currently too as most nails come from China and all major corporations in China are owned by the CCP.

>black market

Black markets arise as a direct consequence of government regulation.

>government says you can't smoke weed and makes it illegal

Guess who will supply you with weed?

>government says you can't have alcohol

Oh gee I wonder who supplied alcohols in the early 1900s U.S.

Monopolies in a free market is not something negative, monopolies created by governments are inherently bad and dangerous.

Literally correct.

>give somebody money for stuff
>they take your money and don't give you the stuff

At which point you require some form of social organization capable of enforcing contracts.

And the only magical people who can enforce contracts are the wizards of the magical government.

Governments aren't the only thing that claim and protect property rights.

Luxottica

The problem with your property being maintained purely by the fact you have a gun means that all a person has to do is wait for you to leave your house.

So no one else is allowed to sell sunglasses?

As opposed to when you're "protected" by the government where there will be police outside your property at all times ready to protect it?

>Black markets arise as a direct consequence of government regulation.
It's nonetheless of an example of a monopoly created in an unregulated market - not that aren't plenty of other examples that simply rose due to dominance of trade in an area.

If a market isn't regulated, eventually, someone will regulate it.

>Monopolies in a free market is not something negative, monopolies created by governments are inherently bad and dangerous.
I fail to see how a monopoly created by a government, particularly in a democracy, is more dangerous than one created in an unregulated market that has its own monopoly of force, unanswerable to the people, save by acquisition of superior force.

Not without getting their ass dominated by Luxottica

Or hire security thugs - like the guys who had all these guns do. (Or just cut the heads off guys who steal your stuff and leave them laying around on car hoods with nasty messages - also works.)

But the market doesn't even exist due to the regulations in place, that's why black markets exist.

The Soviet Union had a black market so big it was 15-20% of their GDP, would you say the Soviet Union had any unregulated markets?

>I fail to see how government monopolies are more dangerous

First of all, governments do not act democratically. Yes, people get to vote for representatives but what happens after that has very little to do with the will of the people other than the fact that the person with the most votes was voted as their representative. A government monopoly is dangerous because in most countries, governments have a monopoly on violence.

In a free market it is ultimately the individuals in that market that decides if there's a monopoly or not, this free market monopoly does not exist because it has the monopoly of violence and can therefore enforce this monopoly by imprisoning those who does not agree but rather because the individuals taking part in this free market sees it as a rational thing to be. It is very hard to create a monopoly in a free market as you are under constant pressure from all the individuals taking part in the market. If you do not constantly outperform your competitors you will not have a monopoly.

A government monopoly on the other hand does not care about markets, individuals or competitors, after all the government does not need to make money from their business, there's no price discovery needed or any of the other trials you would have to go through in a free market in order to survive. All a government has to do, due to their monopoly on violence, is to enforce their monopoly by law, making all other businesses within that market illegal. The government monopoly is therefore incredibly dangerous as it does not have to do anything in order to survive.

So if one company can't compete with another, it's a monopoly?

Would you then say that, for example, Usain Bolt has a monopoly on 100m sprints? Or Korean archers a monopoly on archery? What about U.S. mens basketball team and their monopoly on basketball?

Forgot to add a great quote from a great man, very relevant to our discussion.

>But the market doesn't even exist due to the regulations in place, that's why black markets exist.
It matters not where the unregulated market originated from, only that it eventually created a monopoly on its own, as all markets, left to their own devices, eventually do.

>In a free market it is ultimately the individuals in that market that decides if there's a monopoly or not, this free market monopoly does not exist because it has the monopoly of violence and can therefore enforce this monopoly by imprisoning those who does not agree but rather because the individuals taking part in this free market sees it as a rational thing to be. It is very hard to create a monopoly in a free market
And yet, as far back of the days of antiquity, inevitably and invariably, some monopoly of force arises. Eventually, someone or some group gathers enough power and influence to have that very monopoly on violence you so fear, only subject to similar nearby monopolies on violence, or those with the power to project or interfere with them. What's the difference between a Merchant Prince and a King with divine mandate? None - the prince may even have the bigger army, or the King's lands may even be reliant on trade with him, as so often happens. Much as with a government, the only real threat to his power is external force.

A representative government with a monopoly, has to keep its people placated. Further, its survival depends on its economy. They pay a very dear price for being wrong, and risk subjecting themselves, not only to an uprising by the people, via legitimate or illegitimate means, but also risk their existence against those same external threats. The private monopoly must help serve that purpose, or the government will dismantle it. The Merchant Prince, on the other hand, is absolute until destroyed, and answers to no one.

Congratulations, you just created a government.

>all markets create monopolies

Wrong, I already explained why.

While I do agree that we most likely won't see some sort of monopoly force disappear, it is very different from having a small government doing it's essential bidding (protecting it's citizens. their freedom and their property) compared to say, the supranational EU of today.

A representative government with monopolies merely have to keep the monopoly on violence intact in order to have all its other monopolies survive. You're incredibly naive if you think any government today answers to anyone but themselves and that people actually have any kind of power other that choosing who they want to represent their interest every x amount of years.

Government very rarely pays any price for being wrong, and even when they do it's a slap on the wrist in comparison.

If a company can't survive in a free market, it ceases to exist. If a government company can't survive in a market, it doesn't matter as long as the government has the monopoly on violence as they will have their company.

There's a world of difference between competition between individuals, and competitions between the institutions which arise from them.

It'd be as if Usain Bolt purchased every 100m track and running shoe in the world, and then declared only he can use them.

In Luxottica's case, they merely purchase any would be startup and manufacturer, and have such a huge manufacturing base, that no one can compete with their prices... Lest, maybe, Elon Musk wants to drop his Mars plans and instead build several nations worth of industry to compete with them, without ever going public to risk being bought out.

They aren't a monopoly because they are the best, they are a monopoly because they don't allow competition to happen, and almost no one is fiscally capable of competing with them (and would have to drop an economic sector's worth of investments to risk trying).

>Wrong, I already explained why.
I didn't see any point where you explained why. Only some allusion to this fantasy that people will always compete independently and never collude. That money and power doesn't simply collate more money and power, until the largest power snowball wins, and free enterprise begins to look very much like government, or subverts an existing government, as has been the economic cycle throughout all of history.

>I don't know what a monopoly is and I must post
No companies can compete or even disagree with Luxottica without getting screwed over. Your pathetic examples avoid the element of the fact that these players don't dictates the rule of the game they play in

And those startups and manufacturers had a free choice and they made it, I don't see the problem.

Individuals don't allow competition to happen, you mean? After all the only reason Luxottica exists is because individuals are purchasing their products, not because they're forcing people to buy any of their products.

Because muh gubmint overreach

A monopoly in a free market is the will of the people, constantly being checked and balanced by the market. A government monopoly is only through force.

So what you are saying is that currently Luxottica outperforms all its competitors? Good for them, they must be good at what they do.

>And those startups and manufacturers had a free choice and they made it, I don't see the problem.
What choice? To operate at inevitable loss with no end in sight? That isn't a choice, economically speaking. For that reason, such startups don't happen anymore. Even if you had some unique niche version of the product, Lux could sell that very same product for a tenth of the price the next day.

>Individuals don't allow competition to happen, you mean? After all the only reason Luxottica exists is because individuals are purchasing their products, not because they're forcing people to buy any of their products.
They provide their products at a price no one else can hope to compete with due to the sheer manufacturing clout. Sure, you can blame people for buying it - put people don't pay for competition to happen (unless you count taxes, where they have no choice) - they buy whatever is cheapest for the tier of product they are after, and Lux dominates every tier.

Luxottica started out as a small company and became a big one, why wouldn't that be possible again?

So what you're really saying is we should blame people for being stupid? Fine, I'll blame people for being stupid.

>A monopoly in a free market is the will of the people, constantly being checked and balanced by the market. A government monopoly is only through forc
There is no will of the people involved. A monopoly in a free market is the result of a handful of people at the top of said market - just like the government, save entirely unaccountable. Once they are large enough, they are no longer checked or balanced by anything, save a similar force larger than themselves, invading from outside of that market, or by the government, if they haven't yet bought it out as well.

>once they are big enough they are not checked or balanced by anything

That's such a stupid thing to say, one only has to take a look at reality and see that's as far from reality as possible. Companies are constantly checked and balanced by forces much smaller than themselves (such as smaller companies) and by bigger forces than themselves (such as individuals).

The best protection one can have from a monopoly is freedom of choice, for markets, trade and individuals.

>Luxottica started out as a small company and became a big one, why wouldn't that be possible again?
Because when you own that much of the market share, and have more manufacturing power than anyone in the world can create or keep up with, no, it's not possible. No one can compete - that's why we call them monopolies.

Just like when certain olive grower families in the ancient worlds owned all the farms. No one could compete, and in their case, they eventually purchased enough force to make sure no one ever could or would... At least until another kingdom came in and murder-hobo'd them all.

>Luxottica outperforms all its competitors
By dictating the rules of the game, not through excellent performance

But before Luxottica became big there was no monopoly. Now that there is one, a Nu-Luxottica cannot rise with the old one in place

I can't compete with Messi or Ronaldo, I think we really ought to remove their monopoly on football.

Anyone is free to compete with Luxottica, not anyone will be competitive enough to survive.

There are many companies huge markets shares in any given market for one reason or another. Luxottica through free trade, Tesla through government subsidies, neither of them however are monopolies. Also Luxottica does not own 100% of the markets they operate in, they're big yes but they don't own the markets. They're merely more competitive than their competitors, good for them. There's no reason why more companies wouldn't be able to compete with them, or for another current competitor to gain more of the market share.

No but the police are supposed to look into getting your stuff back.

>So what you're really saying is we should blame people for being stupid? Fine, I'll blame people for being stupid.
Buying things at the optimal price is stupid? Self interest is stupid? What kinda free market capitalist are you?

>Companies are constantly checked and balanced by forces much smaller than themselves (such as smaller companies) and by bigger forces than themselves (such as individuals).
Not really, plenty of companies get so large that the only thing that can check them is the government that they are under, and occasionally, so powerful that even that isn't possible. There is the occasional multi-trillionaire, or equivalent, that will buy them out, but generally speaking, that's usually just the company changing hands, and more often than not, ends up in multiple companies finding themselves under the same umbrella - creating the invisible monopoly, where a handful of families own everything, and competition becomes largely illusionary.

As opposed to you yourself being able to do just that? What happens when police won't look into it and trying to get your stuff back?

A single person does not possess the resources of an organization.

Then you're supposed to vote in police commisioners that do their damn job.

As well all know there's more to a product than price. If one is as concerned about Luxottica as yourself, perhaps looking at companies that aren't Luxottica would be in your interest were you in the market for a pair of sunglasses.

Wealth disparity where a small minority tends to own a big share of the economy is the rule, not the exception throughout history.

As for companies becoming so large no one can keep them in check, many big companies have failed before and many will fail in the future. And again, public companies are always checked by both market and individuals.

So bring a friend.

I'll just take a stroll down to the police office tomorrow to vote for a new commissioner.. oh wait..

Teddy Roosevelt?

They own 80% of the market share, and the bulk of the remainder is either indirectly owned by them or not in competition with them. No company can ever compete with them. No startup can threaten them, as there's not enough left of the market to enter, and even if there was, Lux can still flatten them at will.

It'd take either government regulation or something borderline supernatural to overturn them. Something akin to the entire US auto-industry switching over to optical frame manufacturing - which, obviously, none of the big auto manufacturers would have any motive to do. I suppose the collapse of the US dollar would do it, but in the end, it'd just be someone buying them out, and continuing that tradition of the indomitable beast.

Okay, maybe if Yosemite blows and their market just vanishes that way, that works too. But there's no economic competitor, period, not even the potential for be one. They are, literally, too big to fail.

>So bring a friend.
Are you purposely being overly simplistic and facetious?

>paper sack trust
OH COME ON, HOW DOES A MONOPOLY EVEN WORK THERE

Basically every long lasting monopoly in the world has been caused by THE longest lasting and largest monopoly, state.

Literally no one had a problem with this throughout history until the state had the power to vaporize cities. Then suddenly it was a problem.

So you're just spouting fiction now, as reality is completely different from how you conceive it.

You don't have any friends?

Because it meant that realistically, the state was no longer capable of being defeated and revolution in an industrialized society was impossible.