>>> Chaz, show me the deadweight loss.
Can this be done in the way you wish? For instance, by the time Rockefeller was completely in control of the American oil business, he had no competitors. Can you show the 'deadweight loss' without debate in that situation? If not, do you disagree that Standard Oil needed to be broken up, or with the conclusion since reached by many that the resulting competition was good for the country.
I think this is an interesting comparison, since oil was needed for the hardware of that day, the automobile, to run, in a way analogous to our situation, that computers must have Windows. And gasoline and deisel fueled vehicles, once widely accepted, virtually eliminated all other technologies of the time, (electric, steam, flywheel, human powered, trolley, alcohol, natural gas, animal) not because of superiority in all cases, but because of network effects, aided by some deliberate anticompetitive skulduggery to lock those network effects in.
I think the highway system is an interesting analogy to the Internet from the standpoint of anticompetitive forces, subsidies and laws, and activities. For instance, Standard Oil conspiring successfully with GM and Firestone to run down, buy out, and tear up trolley lines across America. Getting the taxpayer to subsidize the highway system and thus the trucking companies, which do most of the road damage (use the most bandwidth). Banning horses on roads and in towns, even for stabling. Building a road system incompatible with bicycles, and in some cases, pedestrian traffic.
More: Burning natural gas at the wellhead rather than using it for fuel. Promoting the use of gasoline fueled tractors in the US and other places (at taxpayer expense, via foreign aid), thus contributing to (or creating) the dustbowl and being a factor in the expansion of the Sahara. Manipulating the outcomes of automobile research and law toward only those solutions that use large amounts of gasoline and oil. Musclecars, the banning of the turbine engine from races, the active opposition to environmentalist forces wanting to reduce emissions, opposition to mass transit, reluctance to market engine oils with good lifetimes, opposition to mileage requirements and the Reagan administration's consequent rollback of emission and mileage requirements. All of these negative effects were allowed because of 'it's high technology', lobbying, PR, press stupidity in the face of a fait accompli, buying out the press, campaign and other 'contributions', opposition to and undermining of R&D on alternatives.
One of the most compelling analogies is the setting up of a network paid for by taxpayers and consumers but for which the greatest overhead would be created by commercial users, who are in both cases, the Internet and the road system, subsidized by the little guy, who is constantly manipulated for commercial gain during his use of the facility as well.
And of course, the omnipresent network effect. Which Rockefeller and his crew seem to have understood at least as well as anyone today. It is of course not new, though it is new to some.
Now old Rockefeller would have people beaten or killed, I assume (and hope :) MSFT is content with 'cutting off their air supply' (destroying them financially.)
Could you have proven, prior to the gradual successes of alternative fuels, mass transit, proof of connection to certain lung diseases, global warming, consumer fuel savings after alternative engines that were mandated had been built, alternative oil companies and gas station networks had emerged, et cetera, that there was a 'deadweight loss', before the fact, except on general principles of competition and law? I challenge you to show how, and why that was different,
Chaz |
