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by kirkules
2648 days ago
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To what is Capitalism opposed, here? The original article didn't impugn capitalism, it impugned deregulation, corruption, and a culture of faux-hero worship that reinforces these. It impugned bad capitalism. It was the opposite of unaware of survivorship bias; the whole point is that such biases (and others) explain why capitalist-cowboy heroes are seen as heroes, instead of actual outstanding acumen and brilliance. This is part of why I think your original point doesn't stand; you are defending something that wasn't attacked. I care about this mostly because of the framing of the OP, in which capitalism is somehow put in opposition to "academics", which is spurious. |
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For one thing, this is an article written by a history professor who is pitching her book: " Cigarettes, Inc.: An Intimate History of Corporate Imperialism"
The term "corporate imperialism" is your first clue. I spent some more time perusing her other writing and I'm not impressed. She's got an agenda here and that's to take a specific example of corporate power run amok and extend it to other areas. THAT is what I was pushing back against.
There are a litany of other examples that would have served this subject better (oil, sugar, hell, even bananas) because the connection between production of a commodity item and the effect on the economy and society would be much clearer.
In this example, she's focusing on cigarettes as the central player. The problem is that cigarettes aren't a commodity; they're branded. You could easily make the case that Heinz Ketchup doesn't deserve their position as market leader because they control so much of the market that nobody else stands a chance. That kind of backing into a theory of history is what I'm talking about when we discuss survivorship bias. If there hadn't been a monopoly, she'd have nothing to write about. Nothing in the article serves to identify how to prevent a monopoly from forming in the current day nor does she cite any examples of markets where it's nearly impossible (despite their best efforts) for someone to achieve and maintain a monopoly because the pace of innovation constantly forces an evolution of the market.
So, to sum up, I think she's reaching. I don't find her account useful as a prescriptive when trying to understand if monopolies are bad (however they are formed) or if there are ways to prevent a monopoly from forming when a competitor has a product so good that nobody else can come close.
As a book of the history of cigarettes and jazz, sure, whatever.