Well, you present some good and some poor reasons why my mini-cartel wouldn't hold up, and I could develop a more complex model in response, but that really isn't the point.
The fact of the matter is that historically monopolies and cartels have often been very effective for long periods of time in concentrating wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. Perhaps the economic system of europe for several hundred years, called Feudalism, is a good example. Feudalism in various forms existed in this country well into the 20th century, and still exists today in many places in the world.
You move sixteen tons, and what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the Company Store
~20th Century american folk song - specific attribution unknown due to laziness
Consider the possibility that unfettered laizez-faire capitalism tends to concentrate wealth to the detriment of society, and that society, as a body-politic, recognizes that too great a concentration stifles progress and therefor places restraints on such concentration through a political process - government intervention. Such governmental restraints on the market exist in all advanced, industrialized societies today. I question, therefor, whether all of these societies are misguided or whether there exist very good reasons for such restraints.
I'm only about 1/3 of the way through Mises' Theory of Money and Credit. While it's not as tough a slog as Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, it is heavy going. Don't know what it is about that Germanic attention to, and explication of, detail that makes it so. -g-
eddieww@Economic-Agnostics-R-us |
