It still had to produce, market and sell the good. I don’t deny it is not a legitimate free market entity, but it’s a bit silly to deny that the firm actually does work to make a profit.
-Jon
Right, but I question wether the profit margins would be the same in a free market, and I don’t find it sensible to defend them and other buisinesses in the absolute in the name of free markets.
What does ‘market forces’ mean ? Surely the action of the most important market forces, those created by competition, is heavily restricted in the current statist environment ?
If you’re referring to laws of the type “things need to be produced before they can be consumed”, such laws of course can’t be suspended, but that was not the point was it ?
You can’t be a petite bourgeousie, you aren’t a businessman.
Yes, everyone else is the problem. Ever heard of the lowest common denominator?
Strawman. Strawman. Strawman. Next?
Your problem is, you attacked big business. Let me explain something to you, on behalf of all of the people who own small businesses. We all want to have a big business. We all want to provide employment to thousands, we all want to make massive profits, we all want to dominate our competition, and we all want to build a brand and legacy. No one starts off a business with the intention of capping their own profits or market share.
It’s wholly redundant for you to continually complain about capitalism, when what you have a problem with can almost always be more accurately described as fascism or socialism. Does it really need to be said on this forum, by you or I, that we are obviously not fond of government intervention in the market? Of course not. It is just a word game being played out over and over.
Well of course it wouldn’t. The very fact of oil dependence has in part its cause in government subsidies and subversions of market preferences. I just thought it’s excessive to assert that oil companies merely collect profits, and do little more.
BTW Liberty Student, I don’t think it’s necessary to actually be a businessman to be part of the bourgeoisie, let alone the petite bourgeoisie. You might mean capitalist. Of course the way Marxists use these terms is too static for words and make no sense in any case.
-Jon
Well, they certainly do more than that. They lobby for legislation to restrict competition, they work as tax collectors for the state and they probably are entangled with the military and benefit from tax-payer financed wars.
Also, I understand that in countries where oil production is nationalized, ‘private’ firms work as contractors…
Lets look at the US Postal Service.
It benefits from a government monopoly, but unlike the government who has tax collectors, it must rely on willing customers for revenue. USPS, like any other business, must set its prices correctly in order to maximize profit. Obviously its monopolist status increases its potential to make profit, thus directing an artifically high amount of resources towards the industry, but the fact that it still has willing customers means that it still provides a net market benefit.
The USPS is tainted by the existence of violence. But, unlike the state, it is part criminal and part market actor. Its guilt must be proportional to its crimes. True, it would likely cease to exist in any form without its monopoly status, but that is an economic issue separate from its legal guilt.
Any reduction in the violence backing the monopoly would mean an equal improvement in the functioning of the market. The crime here is the fiat monopoly, profit is the motive.