How would a bad monopoly be likely to be taken down if not by government intervention?
replyOpen source vs. Microsoft is a great example.
replyIt eventually becomes so big and inefficient that it gets overtaken by new competitors.
replyA Monopoly implies an organization powerful enough to stop competition. Seems like this solution that relies on competitors is fatally flawed. If there are enough competitors to meaningfully compete then there isn't a monopoly.
replyYou can only truly stop competition by government intervention.
replyWhen an organization gets big enough it is indistinguishable from government.
replyA monopoly comes with serious moats, otherwise it wouldn’t be one. It can stay big and inefficient for decades.
replyNot if they hire good to go and literally kill the competition.
replyGood for whom, exactly?
replyThis seems like a classic straw man argument. Plutocratic oligarchs have been making the argument that private monopolies are better than representative democracy at basically any societal function for decades without any actual data.
replyThis seems like a classic straw man argument. Plutocratic oligarchs have been making the argument that private monopolies are better than representative democracy at basically anything for decades.
reply>Haven't read his book, but the idea that monopolies are good isn't typically made in a vacuum, it's made relative to alternatives, most often "ham-fisted government intervention". It's easier to take down a badly behaving monopoly than to change government, so believing monopolies are better than the alternatives seems like a decent heuristic.
replyWhat? How is the first alternative poor government instead of multipolar competing companies? When was the last time a Monopoly was actually broken up in the US? ATT/Bell 50 years ago? lol