[kibwen]

Free markets tend to produce monopolies. You know how economies of scale are a thing? That's another way of saying that small companies lose to large companies at scale. "Disruption" or "agility" is the only thing that small companies have going for them, but once the monopolist gets large enough they can just buy up any upstarts and keep the market all to themselves forever. This is why you require governments to periodically shake the snowglobe and restore markets to competitiveness... until the monopolist gets big enough that they just buy the government, anyway.

[Straw]

No, governments tend to produce monopolies.

Can you find true monopolies in the free market, in the last 100 years, that have lasted for at least 20 years, without some kind of government backing/suppression of competitors? I only know of one.

Things only count as monopolies if they have monopoly pricing power; Google is not a monopoly, they cannot even charge 1 cent per search.

In practice, despite economies of scale, large companies age and become bloated, inflexible, etc. So there's typically plenty of room for new companies to compete.

If a monopolist buys all upstarts, then that creates an even stronger incentive to make competing businesses! You don't even have to succeed in the market, you just have to get bought up! The more they buy out, there stronger incentive there will be to enter the market. No one can do this indefinitely- except with some kind of government support- say a regulation that makes it difficult to enter the market.

[cogman10]

> Can you find true monopolies in the free market

Your definition of monopoly isn't what people are commonly talking about when they say "monopoly".

Granted, you have the correct definition, just not the colloquial one.

What people say "monopoly" what they are really talking about is industries captured by few big players. For example, grocery stores. There's not a true monopoly there but there is damage done by the fact that there's very little competition in that space. Both to consumers and product manufacturers. These big grocery chains use their leverage to get prices smaller chains can't compete with. Further, they have been trying to consolidate (see Kroger Albertsons merger) to further exert anti-trust behaviors.

A clear example of the damage done by this sort of hyper consolidation is what's happened to the memory market. Multiple times the 3 big players have been hit with anti-trust lawsuits because of the price fixing they've engaged in. It's true they are not true monopolies, but they exert exactly the problematic behavior of a true monopoly. It's very unlikely that the free market would ever fix this.

[Straw]

Groceries are an excellent example of competition. Profit margins on groceries are razor thin. The large chain leverage results in lower consumer prices. Large grocery chains don't have anomalously high profits, ROI, or really anything that would indicate harm to consumers. Groceries are cheaper than ever compared to median wages.

The memory market is international, its not clear what anti trust even means here. Even so, look at the price of memory over time, say the last 20-30 years. Adjust for inflation and its even more extreme. Sure, it is up recently with AI demand, but the general trend is drastically reducing cost and increasing quality. Memory technologies are evolving quickly and it's a capital-intensive business, so its not surprising that there are a few leaders. There's no guarantee of instant competition in free markets.

Cartels rarely last long without enforcement. There's such a strong incentive to defect and secretly sell more under the table. Even OPEC could not maintain one. Memory right now is expensive simply because demand outstrips supply and there is significant capital investment and lead time to increasing supply.

[cogman10]

> Large grocery chains don't have anomalously high profits

Define "anomalously" What do you mean by this? You'd admit that large grocery chains do have high profits right? Even with "razor thin" margins.

Large grocery outlets do love to claim that their margins are razor thin yet somehow each of them are some of the wealthiest in the nation. How can that be if they are so good for the customers?

> its not clear what anti trust even means here.

Price fixing [1]

> There's such a strong incentive to defect and secretly sell more under the table. Even OPEC could not maintain one.

OPEC is the exception, not the rule. And enforcement is a lot easier when there are fewer players. The reason OPEC has a hard time enforcing it's prices is because there are are too many players. Were they standard oil, they'd almost certainly be able to maintain their prices and discipline.

Cartels very rarely dissolve on their own. The free market naturally tends towards consolidation and cartels forming.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_industry_price_fixing

[Straw]

Grocery store profits aren't larger than any other industry. Nor are they larger than in the past. Large grocery store chains do not have high profit margins. Sure, the total profit may be large if you run 1000 grocery stores.

What do you mean by they are the wealthiest in the nation? None of the richest people in the world built their fortunes on groceries?

Price fixing is a phenomenon. Anti trust is a policy agenda. What entity would carry out the proposed agenda, when the parties supposedly fixing are in different countries?

How long did the fixing agreement last successfuly? DRAM has famously gone through booms and busts where supply outstripped demand and led to very cheap prices and no profits.

OPEC worked about as well as any cartel. Could you give an example of a cartel maintaining their position without heavy government help? Even the drug cartels in mexico, with extreme willingness to coerce, cannot maintain a monopoly and have competed drug prices in the US down heavily! If you consider memory a cartel, then it has only remained so by... drastically improving the quality and reducing the cost of its product? Hardly a problem.

[cogman10]

> None of the richest people in the world built their fortunes on groceries?

The Waltons (Walmart) aren't some of the richest people in the world?

> What entity would carry out the proposed agenda, when the parties supposedly fixing are in different countries?

Few can, to be fair. The US and the EU are some of the few that can due to the size of the markets underneath them. A company getting excluded from their markets is enough for them not to want to risk anti-trust enforcement.

China can to some extent as well, which is why you see the likes of Hollywood bending over backwards to meet Chinese standards in media. It's a large enough market that they don't want to miss out.

> How long did the fixing agreement last successfuly?

I see no reason they wouldn't have gone on indefinitely. The only thing that ultimately ended them and caused the busts was antitrust enforcement.

> Could you give an example of a cartel maintaining their position without heavy government help?

Modern examples are few and far between, and that's because the historic examples failed to use their money to buy off enough government officials to cement their positions.

Standard Oil would be an example of this. They did spend money to avoid being regulated, but they didn't ultimately use that to push policies and laws to cement their position in the market. They simply bought out competitors as they rose up.

Bell Labs/AT&T is another example that didn't use their influence to cement their position. They got their monopoly fairly naturally. The closest you could argue is they got utilities access laws passed by the government.

An even older example would be the East India Company. They became so big that they actually took over land and established themselves as a government. Basically the only reason they fell was because of an armed rebellion.

[avazhi]

> You'd admit that large grocery chains do have high profits right? Even with "razor thin" margins. Large grocery outlets do love to claim that their margins are razor thin yet somehow each of them are some of the wealthiest in the nation. How can that be if they are so good for the customers?

No, grocery chains don't have high profits.

https://www.economist.com/business/2026/07/20/dont-blame-sup...

"First, consider margins. These are often wafer-thin. American supermarkets like Kroger and Albertsons collected just 1% of their sales in operating profits last year. Even Walmart, with its 4% margin, hardly looks like it is milking customers. It is a similar story in Britain and France, with margins only a little fatter in Australia and Canada. The real cream has traditionally been elsewhere in the supply chain, such as with the big food manufacturers. Over the past decade the average operating margin across General Mills, Kraft Heinz, Mondelez and PepsiCo has been 13%."

Do you know what an operating margin is? If you don't you can easily find out. Your comment is wrong in its entirety and you could have very easily discovered this before subjecting others to it.

"yet somehow each of them are some of the wealthiest in the nation."

Who even knows what on earth you meant by this. Some of the wealthiest what, businesses? That's something certain large grocers and some other businesses get with scale - it doesn't mean a business necessarily has 'high profits,' which was your entire thesis.

Looking at your comment history, you have a tendency to state things with a high degree of confidence when you often know very little about them. You should strive to do better - perhaps research and read more and type less.

[vjvjvjvjghv]

What you are describing sounds great in theory, but the real world doesn’t work like that.

In more and more areas the obstacle to enter a market is not regulations but money.

[Straw]

I'd say exactly the same about antitrust. Can you give an example of a lasting monopoly not backed by some government policy? At any point in the last 150 years?

[vjvjvjvjghv]

Can you give examples of these government policies?

[Straw]

Sure. The most straightforward example would be utilities in much of the US. Companies like PG&E are literally granted a monopoly in a region.

Another example would be epipens. There is a competitor, but unlike most drugs, if the doctor prescribes you an epipen, the pharmacy can't give you a generic substitute, it must be name brand.

Tesla is being heavily protected from Chinese competitors by US auto tariffs.

Credit Ratings agencies (in large part responsible for 2008 crash) have direct government granted status.

Taxi medallions, Jones act, sugar tariffs.

These are the ones that come to mind right away, but there's a whole slew of stuff- any regulation that's easier for a big business to comply with than a small competitor, for example. Even worse if the big business manages to influence the regulation to enhance this effect. Personally I'd guess Boeing is an example of this; yes, aviation does have high capital costs but I suspect that FAA regulation + Boeing cozy relationship makes it much harder for new entrants. Of course, this isn't to say the FAA regulation isn't helpful or doesn't improve air safety, just that it also has this effect.

[pphysch]

Exactly. If you ask anyone on the street, "is it easier for a fast food worker or a business-owning millionaire to make their next million dollars?", common sense will prevail.

Money begets money (and power). It doesn't require an economics degree to understand this positive feedback loop.

[fragmede]

Wouldn't that be more of a negative feedback loop? My signals and systems class was a long time ago, but a system that throttles to extremes is negative, not positive feedback.

[pphysch]

Nope, negative feedback is dampening and stabilizing. Antitrust enforcement represents a healthy negative feedback for the natural runaway concentration of wealth and power.