Non-Agenda-Oriented Solutions

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
161

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
I think Somalia is a perfect example that your idea doesn’t work in practice.[/quote]

That is not my idea in practice.

My idea in practice is…wait for it…

wait for it

…

Don’t hurt people. Mind your own business.[/quote]

Yeah, and my addendum would be that a small but dedicated police force should come down like the wrath of God (OT) on those who do not quite get that raping, murdering and plundering are not ok.

[/quote]

I call this a monumental misunderstanding of human nature. I am all for the mantra, but it’s just not reality. There are flat evil people in the world and as long as there are people, evil will exist. Don’t hurt anybody? I can do that, but I can’t speak for my neighbor. Evil unchecked is worse then government, unless the government is the source of the unchecked evil. None the less, fear of punishment by a central power is a key deterrent to the minds of evil men.
I would love to walk in the light with my brother’s and sister’s hand and hand in peace and harmony. That shit ain’t reality.

162

[quote]kamui wrote:
Free or not, the Market is extremely sensitive to fear.
The companies who can produce the more threat will always induce the more fear, and they will always dominate it.

It doesn’t matter if they are called a “governement”, a “State”, a “mafia” or a “company that managed to create a successful monopoly on violent services”.

the result is the same. And this result is unavoidable.

What libertarians failed to understand is that violence itself is a market. One that will NEVER be free, by nature and definition.

[/quote]

Actually, it really just boils down to resources, he who has the gold makes the rules.

163

[quote]ephrem wrote:
How do you know a regulatory-free market will not be dominated by a few large players?
[/quote]

It always is. But the check comes at the consumer level. If said large players over play their hand, the market goes underground.

164

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
How do you know a regulatory-free market will not be dominated by a few large players?
[/quote]

It always is. But the check comes at the consumer level. If said large players over play their hand, the market goes underground.[/quote]

I wonder.

You know that producers of foodstuffs have A, B en C brands of products that are actually all the same product but simply packaged, advertised and priced differently to cater to different demographics?

You’d think that the rich think they’d benefit from a strong middleclass to sell their products to, but over the past few years we’ve seen an unprecedented extraction of wealth from that same middleclass people who are now facing foreclosure.

Why?

Could it be that we, the middleclass, don’t matter to them?

I think so, and a free market won’t change that, imo.

165

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
How do you know a regulatory-free market will not be dominated by a few large players?
[/quote]

It always is. But the check comes at the consumer level. If said large players over play their hand, the market goes underground.[/quote]

I wonder.

You know that producers of foodstuffs have A, B en C brands of products that are actually all the same product but simply packaged, advertised and priced differently to cater to different demographics?

You’d think that the rich think they’d benefit from a strong middleclass to sell their products to, but over the past few years we’ve seen an unprecedented extraction of wealth from that same middleclass people who are now facing foreclosure.

Why?

Could it be that we, the middleclass, don’t matter to them?

I think so, and a free market won’t change that, imo.
[/quote]

Certainly the rich benefit from a strong middle class and most of them do know it. That doesn’t stop greed though. Looking at the European and American situations, these aren’t totally free markets though. Especially the European markets. So what happened and why were these fuckers able to extract this disproportional wealth for themselves, I tie it to the very regulations that was supposed to keep things even. What enviably happened is the regulations sheltered this wealth. Instead of competition, you had cooperation.
So you get the conference calls where you had to comply with regulations and keep the competition equal. So how do you manage that? Instead of compete for business, everybody cooperated to keep everything artificially high, everybody keeps their market share, and the consumer gets ass-raped.
I don’t support no regulations, I just want basic simple regulations. Basically, laws. You break’em you commit a crime.
One thing I’d like to see for instance is to make the bundling or direct selling of debt illegal. You bought bad assets you have to deal with them, you cannot bundle them, and you cannot hide them, you have to pay down the debt.
What I am not for is regulations that are made to drive competition, because it creates cooperation. Look at the U.S. automakers for instance. Instead of compete, the cooperated. Prices were kept to high, quality to low, and foreigners came and kicked our ass.

166

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]ironcross wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
I’m not going to watch the lecture orion. No doubt it’ll be as onesided as your viewpoints.

Please give me an example of a failed monopoly or cartel when relevant regulations to prevent them were absent.[/quote]

But he brings several examples, I think Rockefeller who tried to build an oil refining monopoly in the US and a German cartel that tried to block an American entrepreneur from selling bromine in Europe by constantly undercutting him.

I think Rothbard also has several examples, it never works.[/quote]

When was this, 1860?
[/quote]

It does work:

Carnegie, Morgan, and U.S. Steel
Among the wealthiest and most famous captains of industry in the late 1800s was Andrew Carnegie. A Scottish immigrant, Carnegie turned his one Pennsylvanian production plant into a veritable steel empire through a business tactic called vertical integration. Rather than rely on expensive middlemen, Carnegie vertically integrated his production process by buying out all of the companies�?�¢??coal, iron ore, and so on�?�¢??needed to produce his steel, as well as the companies that produced the steel, shipped it, and sold it. Eventually, Carnegie sold his company to banker J. P. Morgan, who used the company as the foundation for the U.S. Steel Corporation. By the end of his life, Carnegie was one of the richest men in America, with a fortune of nearly $500 million.

Yes, Cargnegie succeeded in creating a monopoly.

Since the inception of corporations, they have been trying to take advantage of people, and the people they’ve taken advantage of have asked that they be made to pay what they failed to deliver on. The government stepped in because they were asked to:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1322201?seq=7

This isn’t to say corporations are a bad idea. But when your job is to make as much money any way you can and the people in charge have gotten there through competition, you have to understand that they are going to be good at lying and good at cheating.[/quote]

What you fail to mention is that Carnegie slashed the price of steel rail by 90%, making construction, transportation and whatnot infinitely cheaper.

So, even if you think he had a monopoly, this monopoly was based on excellence and was never used to demand a premium.

The point that was made was that companies form cartels and monopolies to fleece their customers, which is something Carnegie never did and if he had tried he would have failed.

[/quote]

My point concerning monopolies is that they make it impossible for someone new to start up a business in the same market. Therefore, once a market is completely dominated by one monopoly, yes, there are lower prices for the people, but, if this happens in enough markets, you’re doing to have a huge divide between the CEO’s income, and those who work for him, which the guy on the bottom will never be able to overcome. No longer will someone be ale to get into that market as a low-income man, start a business, and eventually make more for himself. Therefore, if monopolies are allowed to exist, they would eventually exist in every market, and there would be an impossible divide between the upper class and the lower class.

167

[quote]ironcross wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]ironcross wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
I’m not going to watch the lecture orion. No doubt it’ll be as onesided as your viewpoints.

Please give me an example of a failed monopoly or cartel when relevant regulations to prevent them were absent.[/quote]

But he brings several examples, I think Rockefeller who tried to build an oil refining monopoly in the US and a German cartel that tried to block an American entrepreneur from selling bromine in Europe by constantly undercutting him.

I think Rothbard also has several examples, it never works.[/quote]

When was this, 1860?
[/quote]

It does work:

Carnegie, Morgan, and U.S. Steel
Among the wealthiest and most famous captains of industry in the late 1800s was Andrew Carnegie. A Scottish immigrant, Carnegie turned his one Pennsylvanian production plant into a veritable steel empire through a business tactic called vertical integration. Rather than rely on expensive middlemen, Carnegie vertically integrated his production process by buying out all of the companies�??�?�¢??coal, iron ore, and so on�??�?�¢??needed to produce his steel, as well as the companies that produced the steel, shipped it, and sold it. Eventually, Carnegie sold his company to banker J. P. Morgan, who used the company as the foundation for the U.S. Steel Corporation. By the end of his life, Carnegie was one of the richest men in America, with a fortune of nearly $500 million.

Yes, Cargnegie succeeded in creating a monopoly.

Since the inception of corporations, they have been trying to take advantage of people, and the people they’ve taken advantage of have asked that they be made to pay what they failed to deliver on. The government stepped in because they were asked to:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1322201?seq=7

This isn’t to say corporations are a bad idea. But when your job is to make as much money any way you can and the people in charge have gotten there through competition, you have to understand that they are going to be good at lying and good at cheating.[/quote]

What you fail to mention is that Carnegie slashed the price of steel rail by 90%, making construction, transportation and whatnot infinitely cheaper.

So, even if you think he had a monopoly, this monopoly was based on excellence and was never used to demand a premium.

The point that was made was that companies form cartels and monopolies to fleece their customers, which is something Carnegie never did and if he had tried he would have failed.

[/quote]

My point concerning monopolies is that they make it impossible for someone new to start up a business in the same market. Therefore, once a market is completely dominated by one monopoly, yes, there are lower prices for the people, but, if this happens in enough markets, you’re doing to have a huge divide between the CEO’s income, and those who work for him, which the guy on the bottom will never be able to overcome. No longer will someone be ale to get into that market as a low-income man, start a business, and eventually make more for himself. Therefore, if monopolies are allowed to exist, they would eventually exist in every market, and there would be an impossible divide between the upper class and the lower class.[/quote]

Excuse me, but why would you care whether there is a monopoly if it does the best job possible?

You are arguing as if your basic problem with this is not that Joe Sixpack might get fleeced, but that you might not get ahead. Totally fine, but however told you that getting to the top was easy was most definitely lying.

Anyhow, you might have a monopoly in one area, if the economies of scale are actually big enough to overcome the bureaucratic inertia of a large company.

Unless of course a technology comes along that turns your whole industries cost structure on is head. Or something comes out that makes your product as obsolete as the horse buggy. Or your CEO fucks up and other companies exploit that weakness.

In other words, a free market is always changing, always in flux.

To stay on top forever is next to impossible, this is not a marathon, this is a rodeo.

168

[quote]orion wrote:

Excuse me, but why would you care whether there is a monopoly if it does the best job possible?

You are arguing as if your basic problem with this is not that Joe Sixpack might get fleeced, but that you might not get ahead. Totally fine, but however told you that getting to the top was easy was most definitely lying.

Anyhow, you might have a monopoly in one area, if the economies of scale are actually big enough to overcome the bureaucratic inertia of a large company.

Unless of course a technology comes along that turns your whole industries cost structure on is head. Or something comes out that makes your product as obsolete as the horse buggy. Or your CEO fucks up and other companies exploit that weakness.

In other words, a free market is always changing, always in flux.

To stay on top forever is next to impossible, this is not a marathon, this is a rodeo.[/quote]

I agree it’s hard, but I would also say many have done it. Also, how is another company going to exploit your weakness if you don’t have any because you have created a successful monopoly?

Also, if this monopoly is ahead because they cut corners in terms of employee treatment and stole the competition’s ideas before they made it to market, would that concern you?

169

[quote]kamui wrote:
Free or not, the Market is extremely sensitive to fear.
The companies who can produce the more threat will always induce the more fear, and they will always dominate it.

It doesn’t matter if they are called a “governement”, a “State”, a “mafia” or a “company that managed to create a successful monopoly on violent services”.

the result is the same. And this result is unavoidable.

What libertarians failed to understand is that violence itself is a market. One that will NEVER be free, by nature and definition.

[/quote]

Interesting.

What follows?

170

among other things :

anarchist libertarians should focus themselves on recreating the conditions for a “truly free market” of violent services. Anarcho-primitivism, while totally utopian, is probably the only consistent option here.

minarchist libertarians should give up their pointless and simplistic oppositions (public vs private, the Market vs the State) and focus themselves on creating the conditions for a real (economical and political) democracy.

the distortions due to the State are not the only thing that plague the Market and prevent it to be a “truly free Market”. It may not be the main factor, and it’s certainly not the easier to modify.
Information (and/or the lack thereof) is another important factor. And we (the people) could actually improve it. It may be more useful than praying for deregulation.

171

[quote]kamui wrote:

among other things :

anarchist libertarians should focus themselves on recreating the conditions for a “truly free market” of violent services. Anarcho-primitivism, while totally utopian, is probably the only consistent option here.

minarchist libertarians should give up their pointless and simplistic oppositions (public vs private, the Market vs the State) and focus themselves on creating the conditions for a real (economical and political) democracy.

the distortions due to the State are not the only thing that plague the Market and prevent it to be a “truly free Market”. It may not be the main factor, and it’s certainly not the easier to modify.
Information (and/or the lack thereof) is another important factor. And we (the people) could actually improve it. It may be more useful than praying for deregulation.

[/quote]

Which is why I advocate solving problems over implementing ideology. Ideology sounds good but is seldom right in the real world.
Ideology should be at your core, but if you find your ideology stands in the way of problem resolution, your ideology is probably at least a little flawed.

Obama implemented ideology over problem resolution in his first two years…He got his wish we we are all worse for it. It isn’t just because his ideology is flawed,but because he ignored any problems that didn’t fit his ideology. It will cost him next year. The president is always to blame right or wrong.

174

[quote]ephrem wrote:
How do you know a regulatory-free market will not be dominated by a few large players?
[/quote]

Because size only is more efficient if you have such economies of scale in an industry that it offsets the costs of maneuvering such a behemoth through the economic waters.

That might be the case in some industries, but certainly not for all.

In a lot of cases, small and fast is better.

175

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
How do you know a regulatory-free market will not be dominated by a few large players?
[/quote]

Because size only is more efficient if you have such economies of scale in an industry that it offsets the costs of maneuvering such a behemoth through the economic waters.

That might be the case in some industries, but certainly not for all.

In a lot of cases, small and fast is better.

[/quote]

How about the global econonomic markets?

176

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
How do you know a regulatory-free market will not be dominated by a few large players?
[/quote]

Because size only is more efficient if you have such economies of scale in an industry that it offsets the costs of maneuvering such a behemoth through the economic waters.

That might be the case in some industries, but certainly not for all.

In a lot of cases, small and fast is better.

[/quote]

How about the global econonomic markets?
[/quote]

What does it matter?

The right size is the right size, no matter where you operate.

In fact, a company that only has a limited market may be unable to get to the size it would need to be.

177

I’m going to mention this again, because it’s especially relevant in the information age:

If a monopoly is ahead because they cut corners in terms of employee treatment and stole the competition’s ideas before they made it to market, would that concern you?

178

[quote]ironcross wrote:
I’m going to mention this again, because it’s especially relevant in the information age:

If a monopoly is ahead because they cut corners in terms of employee treatment and stole the competition’s ideas before they made it to market, would that concern you?

[/quote]

Not really, because if you treat your employees like shit you will be left with people who have no other options and those are not the people who will keep you on top.

I would be interested to hear how you think you can steal something that has not made it to the market.

Sounds like a challenge to do that.

179

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]ironcross wrote:
I’m going to mention this again, because it’s especially relevant in the information age:

If a monopoly is ahead because they cut corners in terms of employee treatment and stole the competition’s ideas before they made it to market, would that concern you?

[/quote]

Not really, because if you treat your employees like shit you will be left with people who have no other options and those are not the people who will keep you on top.

I would be interested to hear how you think you can steal something that has not made it to the market.

Sounds like a challenge to do that.

[/quote]

It happens all the time and is the reason for patent laws. If someone comes up with an idea and doesn’t patent it first, or their idea is found out before it’s patented, they will not make money off of that idea. If they can’t make money off of their idea, they have no reason to try to come up with it in the first place. A monopoly who steals one of these ideas will be able to make it at a much cheaper price than the original person with the idea would have been able to. Therefore, the only person who will suffer in that situation is the person who thought up a great idea that benefited everyone except for themself.

Microsoft in particular has been sued countless times for taking other’s ideas, and I’m not talking about them buying the ideas and then getting sued for making so much money.

180

[quote]ironcross wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]ironcross wrote:
I’m going to mention this again, because it’s especially relevant in the information age:

If a monopoly is ahead because they cut corners in terms of employee treatment and stole the competition’s ideas before they made it to market, would that concern you?

[/quote]

Not really, because if you treat your employees like shit you will be left with people who have no other options and those are not the people who will keep you on top.

I would be interested to hear how you think you can steal something that has not made it to the market.

Sounds like a challenge to do that.

[/quote]

It happens all the time and is the reason for patent laws. If someone comes up with an idea and doesn’t patent it first, or their idea is found out before it’s patented, they will not make money off of that idea. If they can’t make money off of their idea, they have no reason to try to come up with it in the first place. A monopoly who steals one of these ideas will be able to make it at a much cheaper price than the original person with the idea would have been able to. Therefore, the only person who will suffer in that situation is the person who thought up a great idea that benefited everyone except for themself.

Microsoft in particular has been sued countless times for taking other’s ideas, and I’m not talking about them buying the ideas and then getting sued for making so much money.[/quote]

First, if your patent is pending they can go fuck themselves.

Second, patents run out.

Third, patents are not exactly a “free market” idea.

Fourth, if you cannot get their market share this way, you can do it another way.

There are lots of hungry young entrepreneurs out there and the want very last one of your customers.

Hey, treat you employees like shit, treat your customers like shit, behave like a total asshole and see where it gets you.