[kibwen]

This is a natural consequence of markets (and proof that economies of scale work). On a long enough timeline, they trend towards consolidation. This is why constant government intervention is necessary, to break up monopolies and restore competition. A government that refuses to engage in trust-busting is broken.

[frandroid]

It's also the result of a low tax and low interest rate environment. When you can borrow money for free, or functionally for less than your rate of profit, why wouldn't you buy out your competitors?

[hedora]

I’m not so sure. The US has markets that are resistant against consolidation.

I think this is a natural consequence of letting the biggest companies control the politicians that set the rules.

(What you say is true for pure free markets, but the banking industry is incredibly regulated, and the government routinely picks winners and losers in it.)

[Supermancho]

> The US has markets that are resistant against consolidation.

I don't see why they are special and the trends are clear, despite the claim. If govt regulation results in a few winners who have played by the rules and are seen as more reliable or it's free market monopolists (or duo, etc), the result is the same.

[mughinn]

I'd argue it's the opposite, government intervention and existence explicitly favors the biggest players and nudges the market into oligopolies and monopolies

[comte7092]

Are you disagreeing with parent comment? I’m having a hard time parsing.

Are you claiming that economies of scale don’t exist, or that they are trivial to the composition of markets?

[prottog]

Diseconomies of scale also exist and are very real, and I theorize that many organizations try to overcome it by applying political pressures on smaller peers.

[mughinn]

I'm claiming we need less government intervention

[grokgrok]

That's how we get wonderful things like the East Palestine Disaster. Let's deregulate biotech! Coming up next after Shark Week -- Lab Leak Week! Let's deregulate environmental pollutants! You don't need clean drinking water! /s

[mughinn]

It's really easy to say something dumb, but it's hard to actually think about the subject.

I don't really know what happened in East Palestine, but I haven't found anyone saying it was because of deregulation

[ClumsyPilot]

then you havent looked

[comte7092]

I guess that’s my question.

Are you arguing that, if markets are left alone, economies of scale are more or less irrelevant, and we wouldn’t see consolidation in banking?

Seems like a dubious claim to me. More driven by ideology rather than evidence.

[mughinn]

Economies of scale aren't the only thing that matters

Banking is already one of the most regulated industries, regulation takes out smaller companies and leaves out only the ones that are big enough.

It seems to me way more dubious to claim that more regulations would solve this problem in an already incredibly regulated industry

[comte7092]

Regulations by and large have solved the problem.

Bank failures were incredibly common in 19th and early 20th century America. Today they are next to non existent.

Again, take a step back from the ideology and look at the evidence. The count of bank failures before 1930s era regulations vs post speaks to the effectiveness of government intervention.

[robertlagrant]

> This is why constant government intervention is necessary, to break up monopolies and restore competition. A government that refuses to engage in trust-busting is broken.

Conversely, more regulations mean more monopolies due to larger first-mover advantages, and the only viable route is to build until you get bought by a parent company who can sort out the admin.

Constant government intervention isn't what makes competition. It being worth it to start and build a company without, in the slim chance you make it, being a verbal and financial punching bag for future politicians, is.

[kibwen]

The fact that economies of scale exist means that even unregulated markets will consolidate. Regulation is an orthogonal concept. On the spectrum of market competitiveness, one extreme end (perfect competition) is an unstable state, and the other extreme end (monopoly) is a stable state. As consumers we benefit from competition, but free markets abhor competition. Something needs to intervene to reintroduce competitiveness into monopolized markets, and that something is going to be indistinguishable from a government.

[robertlagrant]

I agree that even less regulated industries have monopolies, you're right, but those will tend to be companies that either have a natural monopoly (e.g. they own some land) or are so competitively priced enough for their customers that there's no obvious way to create a competitor that can take market share from them. I don't see either of those situations being improved by constant government interference.