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by nothinkjustai 78 days ago
No they don’t. What happens is that people want to manipulate the market for a variety of reasons, so they do that, and then really really smart people come along later and try to claim that those manipulators weren’t actually the problem but the solution! It is completely backwards, like reversing cause and effect. It’s like blaming a person for standing in the path of a bullet instead of the one firing the gun.

Want a free market? Stop messing with it.
1 comments
simoncion 78 days ago
> No they don’t.

Yes, they do. Price competition and R&D are expensive activities. Businesses seek to maximize profit, as they're not charities or governmental entities. Neutralizing competition (whether by eliminating it or colluding with it) and entering into private agreements with suppliers and vendors to box out any potential upstarts increases profit. Another fine way for a monopoly or cartel to increase profit is to make their product cheaper to produce by adulterating it with inferior ingredients, but mislead customers about the fact of the quality loss, the reason for the quality loss, or both.

The natural stable state of a profit-seeking business is the establishment of a monopoly or cartel. You get the most profit when there is neither a need to compete on price nor a need to expend resources on improving one's product.

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nothinkjustai 78 days ago
That isn’t really true though, monopolies are not sustainable. Pretty much the only way to create a long lived monopoly is to collude with the government (also a monopoly btw).
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simoncion 78 days ago
> ...monopolies are not sustainable.

You might be surprised to learn that the private sector can enter into durable agreements much like the public sector does. It's how things like mon/oligopolies and cartels form and persist.

Anyway. I'd suggest you go read your histories, but you're either unlikely to, or don't have enough supporting information to understand what they're telling you. If you're young enough [0] to be alive thirty to sixty years from now, and you're living in a place -like the US- that's steadily dismantling its consumer protection regulations, then do pay attention to how things have changed between now and near to the end of your life. Take especial care to track down the root causes of the differences, rather than just uncritically swallowing whatever explanations you're handed.

[0] ...and lucky enough...

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