Libertarian and Anarchist Society Part III by SignyM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
A coercive monopoly would be one in which you use methods which violate Rule 1 to maintain it.

Don't have to! Because I'm so efficient that nobody else can enter the market!

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Always look upstream.

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Sunday, January 27, 2008 3:25 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Quote:
A coercive monopoly would be one in which you use methods which violate Rule 1 to maintain it.
Don't have to! Because I'm so efficient that nobody else can enter the market!

If you're that efficient and pass the savings on to the customers, that's fine. If you jack prices up the market will open for competition.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Sunday, January 27, 2008 6:44 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Geezer, apparently you don't understand "economies of scale". Mom and pop just don't have the money to enter into the oil refining business. Now, lets say LOTS of moms and pops decide to toss their money into oil refining... but they don't have access to oil fields. Then what? Its possible to develop unbreakable monopolies through efficiencies of scale and limited access to resources. Or, in he case of communications, limited bandwidth. Or router protocols.

And the sad fact is that if you have a society where people are constantly reinventing basic infrastructure: Three sets of water distribution systems, five different networks of toll roads, twenty mail and parcel delivery services, and six fiberoptic networks... that society isn't going to be very efficient. Eventually, it will be replaced by more efficient models as people opt for systems that provide more than the basics which are replicated many times over.

I think this is the "exploitative" system and its privileges that that HKC was talking about.

Personally, I think that you can have an efficient system that isn't exploitative, but that path doesn't require anarchism.

--------------------------------
Always look upstream.

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Sunday, January 27, 2008 7:13 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Geezer, apparently you don't understand "economies of scale".

I understand economies of scale quite well. I also note that there are not that many virtual monopolies in existence, and the only complete monopolies are run by the government.

I also disagree with the idea that economies of scale lead inevitibly to monopoly. It can happen, if someone like Zamboni gets a massive jump on the market, but generally there will be competition in a developing market and more than one company will grow enough to take advantage of economies of scale. This is pretty much the way things happened in the auto and aircraft industries.

Quote:
Its possible to develop unbreakable monopolies through efficiencies of scale and limited access to resources.

Examples would be nice.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Sunday, January 27, 2008 7:42 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
I also note that there are not that many virtual monopolies in existence,

First of all, in my definition a "monopoly" means that a company has such a dominant share of a market that it can set prices. Or it has engaged in collusion to do so.

My "deregulated" local phone service is a monopoly, and my internet access is near-monopoly (and guaranteed to head more in that direction as the courts have recently ruled that the infrastructure owners do NOT have to lease to competitor providers.) Microsoft is a monopoly. Cisco Systems. Walmart, with its history of "dumping" to drive out local business and then jack up prices, is heading in that direction, especially in small towns which have only enough demand to support one store.

The trend in towards greater and greater consolidation. I see that in my line of work: There used to be a dozen oil refiners in our area, there are now seven. Arco is now "BPArco", Mobil is now "ExxonMobil", "Valero" which is aggressively buying up smaller refineries, bought up "Diamond Shamrock" which used to be an independent local refiner (Ultramar). Phillips petroleum bought up Tosco and merged with Conoco to create "ConocoPhillips".

Now, this happens to be my area of expertise, but when I talk to my SO whose main line of work is in electronics, he'll tell you the same story: Fairchild, Texas Instruments, RCA, National Semiconductor and many other thriving integrated PC circuit manufacturers have given way to Intel and (a distant second) AMD.

Anyhow, I've spent enough time on this today. Time to do something productive.

Here's the story on oil industry consolidation and its effect on prices: (link segmented for pagination purposes)

www.washington.uwc.edu/.../Spring%202002/conbine%20oil%20sellers%20mea
ns%
20higher%20gasoline%2002-24-02.doc

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Always look upstream.

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Sunday, January 27, 2008 9:45 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
First of all, in my definition a "monopoly" means that a company has such a dominant share of a market that it can set prices. Or it has engaged in collusion to do so.

Unlikely in Geezerdonia. The assumption says that if you set prices higher than the market will bear, competition will arise. Rule 1 would say that collusion to fix prices is initiating force by stifling free trade.

Quote:
My "deregulated" local phone service is a monopoly, and my internet access is near-monopoly.

No cell phone service where you live, or phone-through-internet? And the only reason my cable and internet access are monopolies here is because of government regulation.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Sunday, January 27, 2008 10:29 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Unlikely in Geezerdonia. The assumption says that if you set prices higher than the market will bear, competition will arise.

Yeah, but monopolies can allow me to set prices higher than usual, and the market will "bear" it because there's no choice/.

Quote:
Rule 1 would say that collusion to fix prices is initiating force by stifling free trade.

Well, now you've introduced the NEW concept of "free trade", which wasn't in your initial assumptions. Because your first assumptions said nothing about "free trade".

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Always look upstream.

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Sunday, January 27, 2008 11:47 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Yeah, but monopolies can allow me to set prices higher than usual, and the market will "bear" it because there's no choice.

Charge too much and competition will arise. So says the assumption. Plenty of other folks in Geezerdonia with money to invest either in direct competition or in alternatives which could remove your market share.

Quote:
Well, now you've introduced the NEW concept of "free trade", which wasn't in your initial assumptions. Because your first assumptions said nothing about "free trade".

Free trade is covered under Rule 1. If it's not free trade then it's coerced. For example, paying taxes for police who don't protect you, only occasionally avenge you.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Sunday, January 27, 2008 11:53 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Well, "free trade" doesn't seem to exclude making deals with other service providers, does it? I mean, after all, well... I'm the service provider and I want to make a deal with other service providers. right? Isn't that my prerogative? . Let's say all the water providers link up and decide not to charge less than 10 pennies per standard cubic foot, no matter what our cost. And all of our customers are "willing" to pay (not that they have any options) and agree to it. That's "free trade": we provide the water and they agree to pay.

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

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Sunday, January 27, 2008 3:46 PM

LEADB

I'll probably regret asking this, but what do you do if I drop a well in my yard and start selling water for 9cents?

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Sunday, January 27, 2008 4:35 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

More power to you! (But if you live in a city and don't have a backyard... oh "well"!)

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

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Sunday, January 27, 2008 5:46 PM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Let's say all the water providers link up and decide not to charge less than 10 pennies per standard cubic foot, no matter what our cost.

And no provider would decide to expand their market share by charging less? I don't think so.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Sunday, January 27, 2008 5:48 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Sometime cartels break up because of defections and sometimes.... not.

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

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Sunday, January 27, 2008 6:58 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Oh, BTW... LeadB I thought you meant if you sunk your well in a small-time operation. But if you became a serious competitive threat, we'd just drop our prices low enough and long enough to drive you out of business (like Walmart of Microsoft) and then go on our merry way.

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Always look upstream.

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Sunday, January 27, 2008 10:18 PM

Two things I find interesting about this discussion is

1) Geezer seems to be advocating trust busting by force.
2) There is an implication that copyright/patent/IP does not function the same in Geezerworld. All of these systems are in essence government insured limited monopolies. For there to be a free trade system where a company like Microsoft did not gain an upper hand there would have to be some way that a competitor could operate in the same business. MS got a lead in the PC operating system business and once that was big enough a "singularity" event happened by which it didn't make sense for software companies to develop products for a different OS and because of that there was no viable alternative OS because none of the others had software. The only truly free market method around this would be the development of OS's able to run the same programs that the MS OS did, which would mean no patent/IP protection.

Siggy has been pushing the monopoly created from control of natural resources but there are other examples since this message would get a little long to do them all I'll cover them in seperate messages.

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Sunday, January 27, 2008 10:39 PM

(For the sake of reducing potential prejudice the actors in this piece have been replaced with more acceptable Firefly related equivalents.)

Mudville has a general store, Cobb's Emporium, run by the saintly Mrs Cobb. The place sells most anything, Mrs Cobb doesn't gouge on prices, is fair and honest, makes a profit large enough to support herself and her ailing son (the older son, the big gal-lute is "out there" someplace.) Most local folks like Mrs Cobb because she has a friendly word for every one and has been known to knit "cunning hats" for folks she thought might need them.

All was fine until a Higginsworld super center opened outside of Mudville. Now Higginsworld has certain advantages, they can buy in bulk in the market place and leverage prices Ma Cobb could never dream of getting. They can pass those savings on to their customers and undercut the Emporium without the need to run at a loss. Initially folks hang tough and try to keep the emporium in business but over time sales dwindle and the store has to close. Ma is now dependent on money sent home by the big galute.... the one with the funny name.

After the emporium closes Higginsworld is capable of charging pretty much what it likes because there are few alternatives. However, this is not what it seems there is to evil empire no plucky...

whoops

Well no there isn't really, Higginsworld doesn't jack up prices, and despite it's reputation it does even offer some benefits to employees. However for a competitor to enter this market it would need the economies of scale that only a second Higginsworld could bring to bear. There would not be as diverse a commercial landscape as there had been, power to demand and set prices would rest with a small number of very similar entities. Over time there would be the potential for abuse.

But anyway, here's the deal.

Who gets to decide if Higginsworlds practices are "violent?" They themselves would obviously say no, Ma Cobb would doubtless think otherwise. Who decides? How can such a decision be considered equitable in an environment where neither party has a social contract, how could you prove it was equitable. If violent action is initiated who decides when and how and what is appropriate?

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Sunday, January 27, 2008 10:59 PM

Siggy's limited natural resource model does not cover the way that monopolies form in service industries. This has the following steps.

1) Innovation.

Company W introduces a new product or service, creating or redefining a new market for it's offerings. For a time this allows company W to achieve large margins and profits which leads to.

2) proliferation

Companies X,Y and Z form because investors seeing W's profits want to emulate that success. The new companies enter the same market segment as W and attempt to build market share. There are many ways this can be done, better products, smaller margins, lower operating costs. However, both better products and lower operating costs can be matched, meaning that over time the only way to increase market share is to cut margins.
This leads to:

3) degradation

Degradation of company profits occur because there is now excess capacity in the market. W, X, Y, and Z all built out intending to have some percentage of the market, their complete production/capacity now exceeds the user demand. In order to try to maintain profits they all attempt to replace margin with volume but this proves elusive with so much over capacity. Put simply there are too many players in the market with too much product for healthy margins this leads to....

4) Consolidation

Where by the number of competitors is reduced through mergers and acquisitions, removing players from the market, removing over capacity and ensuring renewed profitability. Leading to...

5) monopolization

The few players still in the game will not want to get into the same situation again. They realize that a profitable business model can only be maintained with a limited number of players and a more limited market strategy. Though they don't admit it they enter into a cartel to keep prices from falling lower. Consolidated action by the group as a whole will seek to prevent new players from entering the market. the failure of the previous generation of companies will make it unlikely that new investors will want to finance an active competitor because of the losses that would entail.

Discuss.

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Monday, January 28, 2008 5:43 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Yanno Fletch2, it's so.... weird being on the same side of an argument with you! Thanks for adding to the discussion.

It seems a conundrum, doesn't it?

What happens next depends on how seriously Geezer wants to take the idea of "ownership". In the case of the monopoly of ideas if there are no copyright or patent laws then everything reverts to the free software model: Software, books, movies, drug discoveries or any research would all be open for use and modification by anyone. (A company could still hold trade secrets.) What this depends on that the cost of IDEAS is low... anyone can have one and therefore "enter the market".

But where entry into the market could be quite expensive- auto manufacturing for example- there might not be an easy answer to the problem of consolidation. It seems to me that the answer is not to prevent consolidation... which seems to be an inevitable product of "market forces"... but to prevent a consolidated entity from becoming abusive.

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

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Monday, January 28, 2008 8:41 AM

CANTTAKESKY

HK,

First, I loved what you said about addiction. Bullseye. I would add addiction to ideology to the list of addictions that destroy empathy.

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
I don't quite understand CTS's position regarding "the feeble"

Here's me in a nutshell:
We should provide as much care we possibly can, short of forcing someone to provide care.

More specifically, we need to empower the "feeble." The current social safety nets only try to keep people from falling, but then keep them trapped in the nets. This is the main reason I left social work and oppose public welfare. (The money is nothing--we give so much more in corporate welfare.) It is the erosion of dignity and dysfunctional dependence on the social net that doesn't sit well with me.

If we truly cared about our weak and poor, we don't want to simply maintain them at the poverty level. We want to empower them such that they don't need to be maintained, so that they can maintain themselves. Most people can and want to be self-sustaining.

I see poverty as a hole. Our govt forces people to throw food into the hole. True caring would help them build a ladder to climb out of the hole. And it can be done without force. I helped homeless vets find jobs and get off the street using mostly private resources. It can be done.

Hope that is a little clearer.

--------------------------
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?
--Robert Heinlein, "Doctor Pinero" in Life-Line (1939)

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Monday, January 28, 2008 1:32 PM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
1) Geezer seems to be advocating trust busting by force.

Nope. Don't care if it's a trust or not, only that it not use force or coercion to maintain control of prices. The Assumption states that if it rases prices too high, competition will arise.

Quote:
2) There is an implication that copyright/patent/IP does not function the same in Geezerworld.

This is one of the things I need to do more research on. I'm thinking that intellectual property is the same as any property, and falls under Rule 1.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Monday, January 28, 2008 6:10 PM

LEADB

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Oh, BTW... LeadB I thought you meant if you sunk your well in a small-time operation. But if you became a serious competitive threat, we'd just drop our prices low enough and long enough to drive you out of business (like Walmart of Microsoft) and then go on our merry way.

Never underestimate a bunch of determined anarchists. We start small, then grow. You find, having ticked us off with your monopolistic practices, the community rallies to our side and boycotts your business. We then pick you off at fire sale prices, and resume 'fair and free' trading, with your production facilities sitting on our side of the fence.

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Monday, January 28, 2008 7:10 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
1) Geezer seems to be advocating trust busting by force.

Nope. Don't care if it's a trust or not, only that it not use force or coercion to maintain control of prices. The Assumption states that if it rases prices too high, competition will arise.

Quote:
2) There is an implication that copyright/patent/IP does not function the same in Geezerworld.

This is one of the things I need to do more research on. I'm thinking that intellectual property is the same as any property, and falls under Rule 1.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

Intellectual property isn't really property, that's the use of doublespeak by lawyers to change what something is. Copyrights/patents etc are government mandated limited monopolies intended to encourage people to publish new innovations and so allow a body of knowledge to build up in the public domain that other people can draw upon.

If done properly it's a minor distortion of a free market to allow for people to profit from innovations. Unless I'm reading you wrong the principle mechanism of price control in Geezerland is the ability for competitors to enter a market and thus competition controls prices. As stated IP provides a temporary monopoly so if someone can patent something important -- like Microsoft's patents on it's OS, they can deny competitors the opportunity to compete in their own market segment and thus control prices.

As explained the early lead MS got in OS development meant that most programs were written for the Microsoft OS. This then makes it difficult for new companies to provide adequate competition in the OS marketplace because they have to applications. The only way a competitor has to match MS is to create the whole thing over OS and applications and that is both expensive and limits the market.

You would not be able to have the US version of IP and still run a n anarchist system because you would have to mandate a monopoly and enforce that mandate.

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008 4:20 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Never underestimate a bunch of determined anarchists. We start small, then grow. You find, having ticked us off with your monopolistic practices, the community rallies to our side and boycotts your business. We then pick you off at fire sale prices, and resume 'fair and free' trading, with your production facilities sitting on our side of the fence.

All well and good. I haven't seen that happen YET tho. Maybe in the futureland, it will.

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008 4:26 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
force or coercion

I'm wondering how much of normal "market practices" would fall under this banner. Driving someone out of business by temporarily lowering prices? Reaching agreements with other providers? Vertically or horizontally integrating services for maximum efficiency? Buying up a limited resource? Charging what the market will bear?

I think all of that is fair in Geezer-world. Geezer- what say you?

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008 7:55 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Geezer

No, I'm not imposing 'impossible conditions'. It's US history 101 a la Standard Oil - and graduate courses too, for example Microsoft.

Maybe you can come back with a more accurate argument.

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
What if you own all the land with good access to the water table or surface water ?

Okay, if you're going to impose impossible conditions on the exercise, you aren't playing fair. But that's sort of your way, isn't it?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008 7:58 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

"most of those potential investors would morally balk at ripping people off."

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA ...... SA gold and diamond mines. Need I say more ?

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008 9:23 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Well here's the thing: MOST people DO balk at investing in morally repugnant ventures. Most people don't run meth labs, or pimp out their children, or invest in blood diamonds, or employ slave labor. But that leaves the field wide open for the few people that do.... and THOSE people can get incredibly wealthy and ultimately remake "the system" into something more comfortable... for them.

MOST people aren't immoral, just short-sighted.

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008 9:38 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

"The assumption says that if you set prices higher than the market will bear, competition will arise. Rule 1 would say that collusion to fix prices is initiating force by stifling free trade."

---------------------------------------

The other thing Geezer pretends to not understand is the 'rational economic actor' which is built into every model of capitalism. That actor has only profit in mind (like our proposed sociopath). WHY would he compete in a closed market ? WHY would anyone invest in the competition ? Not for the fight, or b/c it'll make things fair - it's b/c he thinks he can maximize profit.

Now this can go in different directions.

'Competitor a' has such a good process that he can start up with little capital and sell his product dirt cheap. Ultimately that means driving 'monopoly x' out of business, and he then controls the market and can maximize profit all he wants.

'Competitor a's' process is somewhat better, the investment not too far out of reach, his prices and access slightly advantageous. He gets a small share of the market - enough to get the attention of 'monopoly x'. Now 'monopoly x' can adopt his processes and drive him out (they have so much more capital to work with). They can dip into their capital, drop their prices below 'competitor a' and starve him out. They can make a really sweet deal and buy him out - and if 'competitor a' is a rational economic actor and thinks he will be driven out of business anyway he will take that deal - b/c he is maximizing his profit. Or 'monopoly x' can go to 'competitor a' and say - "look - why should we compete ? It's a lot of work for both of us and we both end up with less profit. How about we agree to a common price so we can charge what we want ?" If 'competitor a' is a rational economic actor, he will take that deal b/c ALL he is looking to do is maximize profit.

The ONLY rational economic reason to compete in a closed market is to take over the market yourself. Otherwise 'competitor a' will strike a deal if he can. And in HIS mind - that's free trade - his return on investment.

BTW - regardless of motivation, one of these things MUST happen due to the economic system which is modeled after the 'rational economic actor'. A business which isn't run that way will always fail in a capitalistic system.

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008 9:50 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

LeadB

How do you explain Win/tel dominance in the face of determined anarchists like the FSF and AMD ?

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008 10:02 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I keep thinking the same thing. People PAY to chain themselves to Microsoft's upgrade treadmill even when Linux is available. And they invest in Microsoft too. Somehow, nobody has looked behind the curtain of Digital "Rights" Management and found that it's Digital RESTRICTIONS Management. Not that people are evil. But short-sighted, somewhat lazy, and more willing to be part of the "herd" than to be different.

Every time somebody brings up anarchism and the triumph of the free human spirit, I look at Microsoft and sigh.

And I also think of Bertolt Brecht's "Mother Courage". A point was made that if you need heroes, them someobody screwed up. If a system needs everyone to always behave well, it just ain't gonna fly. It's not a robust system.

Now personally, I'd like to see most of the things that anarchists propose: Non-authoritarian child-raising. Personal responsibility. A whole lot less government. And no police. (That's one function of government that I think is truly counterproductive and should be gotten rid of.)

But I think we actually need SYSTEMS in place to prevent the concentration of power. Procedures that actively REQUIRE input from most people to make things work, rather than allowing authority, responsibility, and reward to float away. That means laws, which means government.

If, for example, the law recognized only cooperative-type companies and made it impossible for a part-owner to sell his/her share of the company, that would do away with a lot of the quarterly-report-driven insanity, as well as do away with the concentration of capital (and therefore power) that accrues to a very few individuals. If collective decisions required a direct vote, that would strip "politicians" from getting their meddly fingers in the cookie jar.

I realise that just as anarchism contains a contradiction (The only rule is, there are no rules), what I propose ALSO contains a contradiction: You must have a system that maintains individual freedom.

----------------
Always look upstream.

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008 10:33 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Not sure if anyone wants to continue the discussion in another thread, but this one was getting a little doggy.

www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=18&t=32457

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008 10:38 AM