[Animats]

The trouble is, some of the alternatives are worse. Agricultural product buyers who control the path by which products are moved (grain elevators, stockyards, etc.) are in a stronger position than farmers. So they can negotiate prices below the "market" with farmers. There are farmers demanding that the US government require the big buyers (especially Cargill) to use publicly traded markets so they can't squeeze farmers so hard.

There's history here going back to at least 1870 or so.

[mschuster91]

Time to break them up, then. Monopolies are just as bad when they are consuming entities rather than producing (or selling) entities.

[Animats]

Some of them are natural monopsonies. Can a town support four competing grain elevators? Parts of the food chain are operated by agricultural cooperatives, owned by farmers, to get around such physical bottlenecks.[1] This is a complicated area. Much political controversy, dating back over a century.

The farmer position: [2]

The American Enterprise Institute position: [3]

An intermediate position: [4]

[1] https://www.wisfarmer.com/story/news/2021/01/04/snapshot-top...

[2] https://www.wisfarmer.com/story/news/2023/11/13/farmers-are-...

[3] https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/stop-paying-att...

[4] https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/apr/04/elizabeth-...

[mschuster91]

> Can a town support four competing grain elevators? Parts of the food chain are operated by agricultural cooperatives, owned by farmers, to get around such physical bottlenecks.

Yeah, but that's what solid antitrust policies, audits and enforcement are for - at least in theory. Someone has to play police after all, to make sure that everyone can reasonably participate in any truly free market. The problem is that most anti-trust legislation is more aimed at large, nation-scale corporations and even there, enforcement is lacking, but small, regional monopolies/monopsonies or other threats to a free marked are a complete Darwinist world.

[telotortium]

Antitrust isn't a panacea. Sometimes you have to deal with the fact that certain companies are natural monopolies or monopsonies.

[Animats]

Yes. Hence regulated public utilities, public roads, and railroad regulation.