[grondilu]

The answer is simple : economic freedom. If companies have the right to merge, it's not because "right-wing free-market ideologues" think it is best for the economy, it's because it is their business and they are free to organize it as they will.

Saying that only "many players can ensure progress continues" and thus prohibiting companies to merge is interfering with economic freedom in the name of "I know better", and that is planned economy. And that, is "just like communism", as you put it.

[dougabug]

Corporations are legal fictions. They exist through the power and authority of the State, their contracts are enacted and enforced through agents of the Courts. Corporations are manifestly not free to organize as they will.

Is it economic freedom to have one choice for Internet broadband? For healthcare? Unregulated monopolies should supply us with food, water, power, and all other essential utilities/needs? Welcome to the age of thousand dollar a pill medicine. Every communication, location, every purchase, every mouse click or swipe duly tracked, recorded, and data mined. To imagine that as freedom merges the Dickensian with the Orwellian.

[grondilu]

> Corporations are legal fictions. They exist through the power and authority of the State, their contracts are enacted and enforced through agents of the Courts.

When I enter a shop there are a few things I can not do. I can't steal, threaten the staff or set the place in fire for instance. That does not mean that the concept of a shop does not exist. Corporations are nothing but an association of people working together and/or sharing the ownership of means of production. The fact that the Law puts a frame around this organisation does not stop it from existing. The concept preexists to what Law says it is.

If you deny it it's probably because that suits your political views so I don't have much hope in changing your mind about it.

PS. Someone who has a job also makes a contract that is enforced by the State, so do you think employment is a legal fiction as well?

[dougabug]

You certainly can steal, threaten the staff, or set the place on fire. To the extent that shop and its people are recognized and protected by laws and government agencies such as the police, you'll likely face serious repercussions. But say the shop is liquidated in Chapter 7 proceedings by Bankruptcy Court, appeals exhausted, ownership of all assets transferred, the building condemned. The shop no longer exists, and in fact may be lawfully demolished.

You could setup a table in the middle of a busy intersection, put some items on it, and declare it to be a shop. That does't make it a shop (or for that matter yours).

What is "ownership" absent law? Is it something you can measure, like gravity, velocity, field strength, pH or temperature? Without the law, a manifestation of government, ownership is simply a belief (which is the antecedent of the law).

[NoPiece]

Welcome to the age of thousand dollar a pill medicine. Every communication, location, every purchase, every mouse click or swipe duly tracked, recorded, and data mined.

You are exactly describing the world today, as provided by our big government.

[dougabug]

> You are exactly describing the world today, as provided by our big government.

Of course I am. Orwell would be astounded.

I perceive a false dichotomy of big government vs big corporations. While it may be possible to have one without the other, we have the latter (as you point out) courtesy of the former.

[sergiosgc]

Small countries, like mine (.pt), kind of disprove this idyllic vision of small government. Small governments easily fall prey to large multinationals.

USA's woes with oligopolies may have many causes. A government concentrated at the federal level isn't probably one of them.

[NoPiece]

My rebuttal would be that the oligopolies exist in heavily regulated areas (health, banking, telecom), and that isn't a coincidence. You don't need a big government to protect yourself from multinationals, you need a non corrupt government.

[willvarfar]

How would "small" government change it?

Being a European living in a country with a "bigger" relative government (as I understand the way Americans use the term) but with free healthcare and a big data mining debate ongoing, I'm a bit at a loss...

[NoPiece]

A smaller government wouldn't have a $52.6 billion budget for the NSA & CIA to data mine.

A drug company can only charge a $1000 for a pill because the government is blocking competition by granting patents. Effectively creating a micro monopoly. Small government with extremely limited or no patents would allow competition to fix the $1000 pill.

It is industries like healthcare and telecom, where the US has both very large companies and very big government that we have the worst outcomes.

[brazzy]

You could not possibly be more wrong.

Monpolies are the exact opposite of economic freedom and amount to a planned economy, except the plan is not even nominally for the good of everyone.

[watwut]

While I agree with you, I would point out that planned economy plans are rarely "for the good of everyone". Planmakers tend to enrich themselves and their buddies.

I'm tempted to write never, but there might have been that one historical event when it went right.

[brazzy]

That's why I wrote "not even nominally for the good of everyone" - explicit economic plans, at least the socialist variety are usually for the good of all in theory but not in practice. A monopoly-based plan would not even claim to be.

Also, I don't think the biggest problem with plans is self-enrichment by the plan makers, but inflexibility, the lack of good information, misaligned incentives and unintended consequences. And the biggest strength of a market economy is not the absence of any of these problems, but that they don't effect everything euqally and the companies that are affected the most just fail without dragging down everything.

[crdoconnor]

>While I agree with you, I would point out that planned economy plans are rarely "for the good of everyone".

This is exactly how it works under our system too. Instead of economic planning being set in motion by the nomenklatura, it's done by the heads of major banks.

[brc]

Monopolies can only happen with a large and determined government to reinforce them. Actual monopolies are exceedingly rare, and nobody has ever provided me with an example where the monopoly power was not in part or wholly provided by the government. No monopoly can overcome the power of technological innovation and the desire for lower cost goods and services in even the medium term.

Monopolies and planned economies are two sides of the over-sized/too-powerful government coin.

I'm all for stopping monopolies from forming, but the solution to that is not anti-trust style laws, but a focus on preventing the conditions that allow monopolies to continue.

[grondilu]

I have not used the word monopoly and was merely talking about the right for people to work together. Do you have anything against that?

[brazzy]

You said

> Saying that only "many players can ensure progress continues" and thus prohibiting companies to merge is interfering with economic freedom in the name of "I know better"

Sounds like you're advocating that all mergers should be allowed, even if they produce monopolies, and that not having many players would be OK.

The notion that regulation which disallows two billion-dollar companies with thousands of employees to merge because they'd afterwards dominate an important market has anything to do with "the right for people to work together" is somewhere between fundamentalist and disingenuous.

[grondilu]

If a company ends up being the only one providing a product or service on a market, there is nothing wrong with that, as long as other companies are not prohibited to enter the market if they are capable to. And I repeat : you have no right to prevent people from working together if they want to. It's none of your business.

If you're upset with a company dominating a market, just create your own company to compete with it.

[brazzy]

Yes, there is a lot wrong with that, as there are often significant inherent barriers to enter a market, and lots of things an incumbent can do to hinder competition, not all of which can be made illegal.

And a good government has every right to prevent this situation, that is exactly its business.

[ivansavz]

> The answer is simple : economic freedom.

I'm all for freedom, and that is precisely why I'm opposed to consolidation. There are a couple of components required to make the free market work: (1) freedom for companies to grow [--> efficiency], (2) freedom for new companies to enter the market [--> competition], and (3) freedom for customers to choose from different offerings [--> competition].

Consolidation is all about (1) at the expense of (2) and (3).

To clarify, when I said "communism" I meant "central planning" (not totalitarianism), which is what happens when a single corporation controls most of a market. Apologies for using this emotionally-charged term loosely.

> prohibiting companies to merge

I'm not sure what wing that puts me in, but I think we should prohibit large companies from merging and also dismantle existing large companies as well. The way I see it, a world with many small and medium-sized companies will run much smoother than one with a single large company. Specifically, keeping the chain of command short (height of the corporate pyramid < 7) will ensure informed decisions are made (instead of decisions based on office politics, and personal vision---the corporate version of "I know better"). Except for some exceptions (e.g. you need a pretty big company to manufacture planes) this would be possible.