>>>But if it is a natural monopoly, and if we are going to regulate it, the antitrust law is not the way to do it. You complain about browser integration, and everyone knows what happens to competitors when Microsoft incorporates some new "feature" into its OS. But the antitrust answer to this, I would argue, is that this is OK, because integration adds features for which consumers do not have to pay. It's essentially a rebate of Microsoft's monopoly profits back to consumers in the form of more functional products. The fact that netscape gets destroyed in the process is irrelevant for antitrust purposes because antitrust law is only concerned with protecting "competition," not "competitors."<<<
Well, I'll simplify, though I think you are being deliberately stubborn, in a lawyerly way.
I think you know what the problem with this is. Antitrust law was originally conceived as a way to reduce the power of monopolies, period. Your conception of antitrust law as solely a consumer remedy is a later revisionist picture painted of the role of antitrust law, as a way to limit it, by conservative interests. As they portray it, in antitrust law if you can not show a consumer issue, you have no case.
This is just flat wrong. (If we had realized how wrong in the 1960's and 70's, we might still have a consumer electronics industry in the country.) Antitrust laws were formulated in a time when corporations and other enterprises had grown so large as to compete with government for power. They were setting economic policy, running their own armies and police forces, dictating the terms of economic participation to everyone in their physical and financial domains, and in most cases were guilty of breaking a variety of laws. In the cases of the railroads and the old Standard Oil this included murder. Trusts in various commodities were formed to corner markets. Cartels were formed to exclude all competition. None of the legal precedent or history is off the books. Even if it were, we would press for new precedents and theories, but we don't have to.
My thesis is that unbridled private power simply becomes the most corrupt and pernicious form of self-interested feudal government if left unchecked by legitimate authority. This is just one aspect of the principle that corruption and incompetence are always found together. It should be obvious.
I would contend that the four largest recessions in American history occurred largely as the result of unrestrained monopoly and financial power, the most recent example being OPEC and the energy crisis of the 1970's, which we are still paying for.
>>>Actually, if you read Greenspan's statement I linked to in my last post, you will see that he believes that government intervention might not have been necessary in the case of Standard Oil, that Royal Dutch and others would have eroded Rockefellar's monopoly without the need for government intervention.
Maybe you know something he doesn't? Or maybe he's just a libertarian schill in the service of Microsoft?<<<
A. He's a shill in the service of the banking and investment banking industries. Where all the mergers get their wheels greased, yes?
B. He's a pale imitation of Paul Volker. I know a lot of people who could make vague pronouncements and do nothing every few weeks, or read prepared testimony straight from a script in front of congress.
C. He's no historian.
D. I sure as hell know more about the software business than he does. At least, I have met a payroll in this business, and that is where the rubber meets the road, my friend.
E. If either you or he had any experience outside the worlds of finance and government, I think you would not have such silly attitudes about what is practical in business. If Royal Dutch had persistently invaded Rocky One's domain in those days, the Pinkertons would simply have put bags over their heads, given them a beating, and thrown them on the next ship home. If any supplier or customer of his had done business with them, he would have bankrupted them.
E. Perhaps you should both remember that the government you are both part of is not the government that anyone out here, liberal or conservative, wants. And that because the people in government now cannot do it well does not mean it cannot be done.
>>>I'm not sure what your point is here, so I'll assume you are saying that government regulation of the electric utility industry has not been all it's been cracked up to be andagree with you.
We are now moving towards a competitive market model in the electric utility industry because the change in technology has undermined the natural monopoly structure of the industry.<<<
I'm saying that when companies get too big and powerful they usually try to subvert the democratic process, starting with bribes or whatever else works to subvert the regulatory process. Your argument is that if the sheriff of some area may be bribed, that is proof that there is no need for a sheriff, because it worked out so badly. Whereas I as saying that it proves that there are scoundrels in town and you have a need for honest law enforcement.
Whether or not both the crooks and the old sheriff need to be strung up first.
>>>The history of the nuclear power industry is a standing indictment of government's role in promoting technology.<<<
You conveniently forget the trucking, water, power, health care, railroad, internet, agriculture, financial, computer, and other industries in which they had a starring role. I wonder if right there I haven't named industries that constitute over 50% of the economy.
>>>To retain their local monopoly power, they instituted systems of incompatible track sizes and engine types, so that whenever you crossed into the monopoly domain of some little railroad, sometimes as small as fifty miles across, you had to unload everything from one train and put in on the other, at great expense. Government regulation was required to bring lower prices to the freight shipper because of that.<
<And your point is????<<<
1. Money and power corrupt. Monopoly power corrupts absolutely within the domain of the monopoly.
2. In order to maintain a monopoly, many many companies over the course of time have resorted to inferior technology and practices resulting in inferior customer service. To them it doesn't matter what the customer thinks as long as the monopoly is maintained.
3. Government solved this problem, which at one time was restraining the entire economy in a major way, through regulation and the imposition of technical standards (in most areas.)
>>>If Microsoft truly is a natural monopoly, then maybe we need something analogous to the filed rate doctrine, which would limit Microsoft's ability, without government permission, to incorporate new features into its products in a way that harms the competitors who are future sources of innovation in the software industry. Maybe this
would deal with your concerns about product quality. I'm not saying we should go down this path,... <<<
I hope not, because this kind of regulation is the worst kind, a corrupt kind, the kind where the industry inevitably ends up running the show. And completely unworkable in any innovative field, because change is greatly inhibited. The only thing worse than a monopoly is a monopoly rewarded with tame regulation and a mandate for monopoly. This is why the phone company used to be the most hated organization in America, before the breakup (truth).
This is a struggle for technical progress, free capitalistic competition, egalitarian justice and clean government against the usual American motifs of congressional corruption, ignorant leaders, and overwhelming power of wealth.
I am not saying that this battle will be won. But if it is, it will be a good sign that things have not gotten to the dangerous stage where a more primal conflict will develop.
Have a nice day,
Chaz |
