Only if you’re using the correct definition. I’m utilizing the incorrect one which is often touted by the Statists, where one or two companies have what is perceived as impossible to topple market position. The reason for utilizing this definition is to illustrate that logically and empirically monopolies fundamentally cannot exist except in certain areas of extreme scarcity (think desert island or even a bordertown along a desert itself…). In all other cases, where the scarcity isn’t so extreme then no natural monopoly is perfectly sustainable. Nor is it really desirable to maintain in such less-than-extreme scarcity conditions as I illustrated in my example (which you haven’t rebutted). So, can you please explain why a monopoly is at all desirable when you’re in a market that isn’t constrained by extreme scarcity within light of my argument so far?
Which I am.
Because it is not a monopoly and I am talking about monopolies.
No, because you are not talking about monopolies. You are just talking about have a major share of a market.
I am confused.
Liberty student, if you can show through logic a situation where this isn’t the case, or provide evidence of a situation where this is the case, the assertion is false.
Spideynw, if you can show by logic that this is true, then the assertion is true. If you can show that this has been true many times, in many different situations, it gives the assertion a strong case.
That is my challenge. Although confused, I am sure I missed one of these conditions.
[:)]
It is a theoretical discussion. Neither of us can really “prove” our position scientifically.
Yeah, pretty much. I thought it was a good discussion because there seems to be a lack of commercial/entrepreneurial discussion here sometimes. Plenty of technical, theoretical, but not much spit balling about business ideas or free market applications.
Because you’re not grasping that monopolies fundamentally are very rare creatures. And thus you’re equating it as the normal or ideal state of a business operation. Again, look at the case of the entrant company, and again look at how it becomes very hard to keep the position of being a monopoly not just because a random entrant company comes along, but rather because the basic foundation of a monopoly is in a static market, which does not exist in Nature. Or at least not in the bulk of all possible states/configurations of a market. Thus, your entire thesis that monopoly is best doesn’t fit the normal cases.
to be fair to spidey , he is not saying that monopoly is best. merely that it serves special interests well, i.e. the monopolist. thats all im getting for him.
theres not much to disagree on, yet if I was to go full pedant on him, I would say being a monopolist gives a short term advantage, but depending on to what extent the monopoly retards the growth of the economy as a whole in the long term there is a possibility that one has a claim to a large fraction of goods produced in a poorly producing economy where one might have enjoyed a claim to a smaller fraction of goods in a much better producing economy and find that one is materially richer in the latter than the former. for a mental image think kings of the ancient world, and the ameneties that can be enjoyed by office workers. healthcare, electricity, etc. etc. If ones monopoly is a precedent for others having monopolies, then one is tending to a collapse of the division of labour and the global/system poverty entailed by such rampant monopolism. (i.e. the monopolist being worse off than if he had been in free competition)
I agree, but I’m more or less looking at it from the lense of the world even with some monopolies granted by a State.
Correct
Agreed. And I have said pretty much the same thing in a previous post. A monopolist will have more money, but not necessarily more wealth.
What are you talking about? Monopolies exist as much as the State creates them. They do not exist in a free market.
No, I am not. I am just saying that with a monopoly, a business makes more money than without the monopoly. But more money is not the same as more wealth. Since a monopoly retards innovation, it is probably detrimental to have a monopoly, since you probably have less wealth.
More profit.
No.