[wak90]

>Also, as the 90s Microsoft case showed, just having a monopoly isn’t bad. It’s the harm caused by having the monopoly.

Can you elaborate your thoughts here because the point of breaking up companies with monopolistic power is they cannot be divorced from monopolistic abuse of that power. It is written into US law that the company has a legal duty to it's shareholders. It seems your point is a distinction without a difference.

[joshuamorton]

Basically all of this is false.

The legal duty to shareholders doesn't mean that companies need to violate the law. In reality, saying " we don't abuse our market position to avoid regulatory scrutiny" is acting in the interests of shareholders, and a lawsuit wouldn't go further. Otherwise you'd be saying that companies had a duty to break all laws in pursuit of shareholder value, which is obviously silly.

And yeah under us law you have to prove consumer harm or anticompetitive practice, not just having a significant market majority.

[wak90]

I am aware of the legal duty. The legal duty is to maximize shareholder value but not explicitly break the law.

What do you think this looks like in practice? Because it makes logical sense to me that monopolistic companies would use their monopolistic power to come as close as they can with anti competitive behavior without attracting scrutiny which is why you break them up in the first place. And it's not theoretical, there are many examples not least of which is Microsoft.

[joshuamorton]

> The legal duty is to maximize shareholder value but not explicitly break the law.

It's not though!

The legal duty is to act in the best interests of shareholders. Avoiding the risk of regulatory scrutiny is in the interests of shareholders. The way a lawsuit like this would work is that you'd go to discovery and short of the CEO explicitly stating that they were tanking share prices (and not disclosing that at the time), the lawsuit would get thrown out.

> monopolistic power

What is monopolistic power that isn't anticompetitive? Either what you're saying here is "Companies would engage in anticompetitive behavior and avoid scrutiny" in which case that's a regulatory failing, or you're saying "companies would engage in legal practices I personally dislike, and not attract scrutiny as a result", which is totally fine.

> And it's not theoretical, there are many examples not least of which is Microsoft

I'm not sure what you're saying, Microsoft wasn't broken up.

[wak90]

> I'm not sure what you're saying, Microsoft wasn't broken up.

I am saying this isn't theory. That this happens basically any time a company has monopolistic power. We cannot expect companies to behave altruistically (nor should we, the purpose of a corporation is to make a profit).

> "Companies would engage in anticompetitive behavior and avoid scrutiny" in which case that's a regulatory failing

Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying. And the regulatory response is to break the company apart or provide a public service that meets the need of the public if the monopoly is natural.

The legal duty is to maximize shareholder value. Because that is the only interest of a shareholder. I am aware I'm repeating myself here but that necessarily means the company must behave in a way that they maximize their profit under the law as it currently stands regardless of morality/ethics. Given the US government has not done any monopoly control since I can remember, avoiding regulatory scrutiny is a farcical risk.

The original point we were discussing is that private monopolies by themselves can be okay but monopolistic manipulation should be punished. And I disagree with that point because monopolies (and any company) must maximize their profit. Nevermind the legal duty to their shareholders, companies must maximize profit.

[prepend]

The issue is that having a monopoly in the US isn’t a reason to break up a company, even though it might make it possible to abuse. Antitrust law in the US requires some consumer harm, so it’s the abuse of monopoly power that’s the crux, not just having it.

And duty to shareholders would actually mean that management would not abuse their monopoly power because of the risk of breakup.