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by eiaoa
2766 days ago
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> There are plenty of holes to poke in his arguments, so have at it. 1. You're not going to truly release the social value of a monopoly unless you socialize it, either through social control or regulation. Without that, the monopoly will mainly serve to benefit its owners. 2. Monopoly R&D expenditure will likely be less than the excess profit captured by the monopoly's owners, and mainly motivated by potential regulation. IIRC, the main raison d'être for Bell Labs to exist as it did was to convince regulators to not break up AT&T. Without that threat it would have likely been more focused on AT&T's profit motive and less on generalized scientific advancement. 3. Monopolies (socialized or otherwise) will more likely end in stagnation. |
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I somewhat disagree. There are some monopolies which become more valuable to society the larger they are due to network effects. One example is Google maps. I suspect the more people use maps, the more accurate their live traffic data will be, which gives every other user more accurate information. Marketplaces are another example of network effects benefitting users - the more buyers and sellers in one marketplace, the easier it becomes for them to find one another.
> 2. IIRC, the main raison d'être for Bell Labs to exist as it did was to convince regulators to not break up AT&T
Interesting, I was going to use Bell Labs as an argument in favor of monopolies producing r&d. It seems like they invented everything!