Competition needs not actual competition; as long as the market is free for new investors to come in, competition already exists. The "monopolist" can only profit as much as it would cost the second best entrepreneur to come in. But that's something I suppose only Austrian Economists fully understand, so it's inevitable that people will be clueless for decades to come still.
Also, the state is the biggest monopoly of all. Those inherently opposed to monopolies should consistently oppose it - yet most do not. They look for the greatest monopoly to swallow all others, never accomplishing anything that was allegedly intended. That's because the state cannot increase competition, it is analytically impossible. All the state can do is restrict, forbid, restrain. Every time it breaks a monopoly for example, it creates a cartel of higher prices.
A monopoly who just outperforms everyone else isn't a monopoly over the market, since others can come in and compete. I say that in respect to your use of the word which is correct, but that it's useless. A few men own an entire industry, so what? What's wrong with that? If they did something criminal, or used the government, blame them for that. But not for offering services and products cheaper and better than anyone else.
If you consider education a personal investment, it makes no sense to subsidize it any more than subsidize everyone the materials to build a rocket to travel to the moon... Each person should be responsible to pay for their investments in full, and they are responsible to weight the benefits v. cost, in my non-aggression-principled view.
Disagree...though I love the Prisoner's Dilemma, the problem here lies on the subsidizing of the schools and tuitions. If the government weren't stealing from everyone to pay for these malinvestments in education, people would naturally be less likely enroll in them since they'd be paying in full.
I would in fact say that the prisoner's dilemma here is the exact opposite you proposed. Using public funds for your own benefit, aka stolen property acquired through taxation, would be defecting. Not using it would be cooperating. So it's the defectors that are stealing and misappropriating resources, you see...
This will feel rushed but I apologize I won't have time to answer. 1- The smaller company does not own its customers. Therefore, if the customers choose to leave and go to a bigger company, no harm was inflicted upon the smaller company. It has went broke because it lost its customers, customers which again, were not its property. So no theft took place, nothing wrong took place. The smaller company got "outplayed" in the efficiency game, rightfully so in the opinion of its customers; for if they wanted the smaller company to live, they would not.. leave...
2- The state of african countries is no more evidence that socialism works in comparizon to the western world any more than it is proof that christianity works. Too many confounding variables, too little controlled experiments.
3- Democracy is no proof of concept on efficiency. It cannot work logically. Why is it, that you do not trust your neighbors to respect you, but you trust them to elect your overlords (aka representatives)? How is it that a population can be so dumb as to require oversight, yet so smart to elect its overseers?
Would you, over a thousand years ago, claim to me that monarchy not only works, but is the best system ever since breakfast, because no other civilized nation in the world had evolved past it at the time? I reject democracy just as much as I would reject monarchy, because I value individual freedom over any little anecdote you can give me supporting serfdom. Serfdom to a king, to a slavemaster, to your neighbors's "elected officials", only the overlords change...
It would be a waste of time trying to uncover every single thing that any government has ever done only to prove that it stinks. Not only would it not prove anything (inductive statements can never prove a general statement, if you haven't read on critical rationalism yet), but also I feel most people concede that government is inefficient and corrupt from their own experiences already, unlike you.
So no, I apologize for not being able to prove to you empirically why government blows. May I again inform you that you haven't proven anything either. Have a good night.
Infrastructure requirements exist in any industry, even a shoemaker needs to get the raw materials and equipment prior to making shoes... In no way is it a justification for a de-facto government monopoly over the manufacturing of shoes And as you say, the sane thing would be to in fact call against it, as any regulation or taxation whatsoever raises the barrier of entry and only makes oligopolies, as you fear them, more able to raise prices.
Also, government isn't perfect either. the question is, who can provide more for less (including "intangibles"), aka who's the most efficient?
There is no contradiction in wanting a freer market. A freer market is indeed freer, contrary to what the state would want you to believe.
do not tie yourself to a certain set of facts to prove a general rule... it does not prove it, especially in such a muddy field such as the social sciences. that would be committing an inductive fallacy of sorts... not sure which one but you can search for critical rationalism and be enlightened a bit.. or not.
I cannot empirically show you why regulation can't ever fix anything, but if you just think for a little bit, just think.
The only way you can know if something is good or bad is if you let people choose it Say if somehow government had total control over people's minds and could manipulate them at will... government would program everyone to be "good". Would that prove that government was "good" for society?
No, because it has acted against their wills from the start
So even if something "good" comes out of government, because it was forcefully enacted, people aren't given a chance to choose, and therefore no measure of "goodness" can be made. Because people were forced to do it. There is no value judgment on anyone's part when it's a law. There's people that are fine with forcing others to do what they want, and there's people that aren't. I belong to those that are not.
If any trade can only be a net gain to both parties, then profit only shows that someone was successful at trading at a surplus! the profiteer was efficient in his endeavors! that's the only thing it means!
Oh but of course.... people think of trades as a net deficit to one party and a net plus to another, so yeah, it makes sense then that they think profit is a bad thing, because for profit to exist someone has to lose... the old fixed-pie myth... never dies...
I don't need evidence of the contrary, you just have to think a little bit to see that line of thought is illogical
Why would and ISP censor you or me for posting anything that does not violate their TOS nor any law? We are their costumers, they want us to like the service so we keep paying. It was always a possibility that newspapers and magazines could censor everything that they want.. and they do, but what they want is not the question. An entrepreneur profits the most when he's providing his customers with *what they want*, and it will never be the case that the majority of internet users will want people being censored... well, it might, but until that day, such actions will be unprofitable and therefore deincentivised.
A soccer game analogy is not complete if you do not specify who owns the stadium. Whoever owns the stadium is to decide whether there is a referee or not. Bad stadiums who aren't able to arbitrate their games may have troubles and will lose spectators teams and money, so you see why they would not. I do not find a soccer stadium analogous to a country however, because people aren't voluntarily assembling to watch a game, the audience is born into it and have no choice but to follow the rules, so I don't know if that is the best analogy there is to make.
I despise political corruption just as much as you do, but the solution is not to make more politics, it is to make less. Less political power means there is less to be gained by lobbying, therefore less lobbying will be done.
Battling on empirical grounds will never answer anything, we can both share our experiences but since we have not built the same correlations we will not see eachother's point. I try to point out the logical chain of premises I've deductively built and point out flaws in yours, which I think is the way to go.
Do you feel that you're entitled to the telecom's money? Why does it matter to you if they make more or less money? It would not bother me if they would grow to be the richest companies in the world, as long as they built and traded everything they got voluntarily. In fact I would praise them for their efficiency, and being able to exchange with so many people.
If you don't like their services or products, then do not purchase them, and you are free from them just as if they did not exist in the universe. I don't see how can you be bothered with people trading with people besides due to jealousy! And please forgive me if I'm wrong.
If the cable companies are making such huge profits, then it's not even necessary to open their lines, any entrepreneur will seize the opportunity and build new lines + undercut them. The overcharging business will lose market share and therefore profits
Fact is, no isp is overcharging. Some may be more expensive than others, but only marginally so. The only way one could make huge profits over another is if they're extremelly efficient, or have government backing to stifle competition. The latter is soon to happen if people are to swallow "net neutrality" regulation...
So should I be allowed to steal your car every now and then to stir things up?
Also, government is the ultimate monopoly. Whatever "monopoly" it breaks, simply is *it* taking over instead.
The monopoly word is thrown around too often. I suggest moving the discussion into free market entry. If a lead business starts raising prices (like a monopoly holding people hostage! gasp!), as long as the market is free to enter, then it cannot raise as much as it would cost for an entrepreneur to enter it. If it does, then other business will flood the market to undercut him.
Did Bill Gates ever overprice windows and held the global market hostage?
Let go of the statist myth that they're saving us from ourselves, I beg you.
I should also add that government can never produce anything to raise the standards of living. It can only shuffle resources around trying to look good, but even on a collectivist standpoint, its just a zero-sum intervention. Only people freely being able to transact and produce can increase a society's "value", if such a thing were to exist externally at all (does not). Only individuals can decide what's best for themselves. An involuntary collective certainly cannot.
Just some food for thought, but you're not the only internet user who values freedom. In fact I would bet that most do. If most ISP clients like internet freedom, would you not agree that most ISPs would try to supply that demand as best as they can, so they can profit more?
What you call "intangibles" are not intangibles at all, it's part of consumer demand. Any decent entrepreneur today would not be making money without taking consumer demands in account to the full extent that the market can supply.
Now if what you really mean by intangibles are restrictions, force, war and taxes... that is something you should look for in government indeed.
If people use the internet less, the ISPs earn less. They have no incentive to do all that. Not any more than a shoe maker has an incentive to put spikes in his shoe pads
Has humanity also thrived due to slavery for a portion of time?
Who are you to say in history, that the forceful actions of a mob was good or bad for a collection of individuals?It certainly wasn't good for the slaves. And it certainly isn't good for the taxpayer. For the slave would rather be free, and the taxpayer would rather not pay taxes.
How is it that the collectivist cannot allow its neighbors to run a business in peace, but then insist that those same ignoramuses should participate in much more influential politics? Which is it, are people free to do as they may or not? Are we all so dumb that we need overlords, yet smart enough to vote the right ones in?
essentially the argument against sweatshops is "the sweatshop workers don't know what's best for them and should do x" no such thing as they "should" do this or that. you have no claim over them, and you have no claim over the company. not your body, not your property, so stfu please.
they should be free to do what they want to do, just like you. You don't like their standards of living? Then why don't *you* do something and donate your capital to them, huh, instead of trying to force other people to. Ridiculous collectivist mindset.
One more thought. If vaccines always come to help the population after the virus has spread, wouldn't it be natural that people are becoming immune on their own, and the studies are flawed in the way that they're not accounting for natural immunization? The vaccine makers could be riding on the results of a naturally occurring phenomena, claiming to be their doing.
The only thing they're able to test for is antibody concentrations after all, which I don't think is the only goal of the immune system. There should also be experiments for reaction time, antibody buildup rate, general "helpfulness" against the disease, more other things... but what do I know, They can just claim it helps, and be done with it, it seems to convince most of the people anyways. which is the only thing they needed in a democracy. I apologize for my ignorance.
When the FDA approves a product the product also becomes a liability of the FDA, since they were the responsible people at testing it. The companies knowing that basically offset those testing costs to it, and lobby it like I said before.
If the FDA approves a product I think it makes it impossible to sue the company for it, in a governmental court, because it would be akin to discrediting the FDA on its job, a governmental agency. The chances of government prosecuting government in any major way is very unlikely, even more so if its corrupt.
There's nothing special about medication or food that makes it warrant a governmental regulatory body to oversight it. What recourse do you have against a bad shoe-maker? Against a fraudulent car dealer? Do we need oversight agencies for those as well? Maybe we already do have them, idk.
I don't have any anecdotal sources of my own, sorry. That's why I ask you.
And the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, which seems to go against your claim that it helped the outspread? If it helped, then... it wasn't by much, or was it?
On a side note, I hate taking it inductively because it always comes down to "who has the most numbers" which doesn't add anything to my understanding...
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Competition needs not actual competition; as long as the market is free for new investors to come in, competition already exists. The "monopolist" can only profit as much as it would cost the second best entrepreneur to come in. But that's something I suppose only Austrian Economists fully understand, so it's inevitable that people will be clueless for decades to come still.
Also, the state is the biggest monopoly of all. Those inherently opposed to monopolies should consistently oppose it - yet most do not. They look for the greatest monopoly to swallow all others, never accomplishing anything that was allegedly intended. That's because the state cannot increase competition, it is analytically impossible. All the state can do is restrict, forbid, restrain. Every time it breaks a monopoly for example, it creates a cartel of higher prices.
http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae9_2_3.pdf
A monopoly who just outperforms everyone else isn't a monopoly over the market, since others can come in and compete.
I say that in respect to your use of the word which is correct, but that it's useless. A few men own an entire industry, so what? What's wrong with that? If they did something criminal, or used the government, blame them for that. But not for offering services and products cheaper and better than anyone else.
If you consider education a personal investment, it makes no sense to subsidize it any more than subsidize everyone the materials to build a rocket to travel to the moon...
Each person should be responsible to pay for their investments in full, and they are responsible to weight the benefits v. cost, in my non-aggression-principled view.
Disagree...though I love the Prisoner's Dilemma, the problem here lies on the subsidizing of the schools and tuitions. If the government weren't stealing from everyone to pay for these malinvestments in education, people would naturally be less likely enroll in them since they'd be paying in full.
I would in fact say that the prisoner's dilemma here is the exact opposite you proposed. Using public funds for your own benefit, aka stolen property acquired through taxation, would be defecting. Not using it would be cooperating. So it's the defectors that are stealing and misappropriating resources, you see...
This will feel rushed but I apologize I won't have time to answer.
1- The smaller company does not own its customers. Therefore, if the customers choose to leave and go to a bigger company, no harm was inflicted upon the smaller company. It has went broke because it lost its customers, customers which again, were not its property. So no theft took place, nothing wrong took place. The smaller company got "outplayed" in the efficiency game, rightfully so in the opinion of its customers; for if they wanted the smaller company to live, they would not.. leave...
2- The state of african countries is no more evidence that socialism works in comparizon to the western world any more than it is proof that christianity works. Too many confounding variables, too little controlled experiments.
3- Democracy is no proof of concept on efficiency. It cannot work logically. Why is it, that you do not trust your neighbors to respect you, but you trust them to elect your overlords (aka representatives)? How is it that a population can be so dumb as to require oversight, yet so smart to elect its overseers?
Would you, over a thousand years ago, claim to me that monarchy not only works, but is the best system ever since breakfast, because no other civilized nation in the world had evolved past it at the time?
I reject democracy just as much as I would reject monarchy, because I value individual freedom over any little anecdote you can give me supporting serfdom. Serfdom to a king, to a slavemaster, to your neighbors's "elected officials", only the overlords change...
It would be a waste of time trying to uncover every single thing that any government has ever done only to prove that it stinks.
Not only would it not prove anything (inductive statements can never prove a general statement, if you haven't read on critical rationalism yet), but also I feel most people concede that government is inefficient and corrupt from their own experiences already, unlike you.
So no, I apologize for not being able to prove to you empirically why government blows.
May I again inform you that you haven't proven anything either. Have a good night.
Infrastructure requirements exist in any industry, even a shoemaker needs to get the raw materials and equipment prior to making shoes...
In no way is it a justification for a de-facto government monopoly over the manufacturing of shoes
And as you say, the sane thing would be to in fact call against it, as any regulation or taxation whatsoever raises the barrier of entry and only makes oligopolies, as you fear them, more able to raise prices.
Also, government isn't perfect either. the question is, who can provide more for less (including "intangibles"), aka who's the most efficient?
There is no contradiction in wanting a freer market. A freer market is indeed freer, contrary to what the state would want you to believe.
do not tie yourself to a certain set of facts to prove a general rule...
it does not prove it, especially in such a muddy field such as the social sciences.
that would be committing an inductive fallacy of sorts... not sure which one but you can search for critical rationalism and be enlightened a bit.. or not.
I cannot empirically show you why regulation can't ever fix anything, but if you just think for a little bit, just think.
The only way you can know if something is good or bad is if you let people choose it
Say if somehow government had total control over people's minds and could manipulate them at will... government would program everyone to be "good". Would that prove that government was "good" for society?
No, because it has acted against their wills from the start
So even if something "good" comes out of government, because it was forcefully enacted, people aren't given a chance to choose, and therefore no measure of "goodness" can be made. Because people were forced to do it. There is no value judgment on anyone's part when it's a law. There's people that are fine with forcing others to do what they want, and there's people that aren't. I belong to those that are not.
God, people have such an issue with profit...
what is wrong with profit? what does profit mean?
If any trade can only be a net gain to both parties, then profit only shows that someone was successful at trading at a surplus!
the profiteer was efficient in his endeavors! that's the only thing it means!
Oh but of course.... people think of trades as a net deficit to one party and a net plus to another, so yeah, it makes sense then that they think profit is a bad thing, because for profit to exist someone has to lose...
the old fixed-pie myth... never dies...
How do they make more money if not by offering more services and products that people want to buy?
Is selling a service wrong, yes or no? Is it stealing, yes or no?
Are you saying people buy things because they're forced to? And only government/you really know what they want or need? Is that what it comes down to?
tell me, how do you make a profit?
I don't need evidence of the contrary, you just have to think a little bit to see that line of thought is illogical
Why would and ISP censor you or me for posting anything that does not violate their TOS nor any law? We are their costumers, they want us to like the service so we keep paying. It was always a possibility that newspapers and magazines could censor everything that they want.. and they do, but what they want is not the question. An entrepreneur profits the most when he's providing his customers with *what they want*, and it will never be the case that the majority of internet users will want people being censored... well, it might, but until that day, such actions will be unprofitable and therefore deincentivised.
A soccer game analogy is not complete if you do not specify who owns the stadium. Whoever owns the stadium is to decide whether there is a referee or not. Bad stadiums who aren't able to arbitrate their games may have troubles and will lose spectators teams and money, so you see why they would not. I do not find a soccer stadium analogous to a country however, because people aren't voluntarily assembling to watch a game, the audience is born into it and have no choice but to follow the rules, so I don't know if that is the best analogy there is to make.
I despise political corruption just as much as you do, but the solution is not to make more politics, it is to make less. Less political power means there is less to be gained by lobbying, therefore less lobbying will be done.
Battling on empirical grounds will never answer anything, we can both share our experiences but since we have not built the same correlations we will not see eachother's point. I try to point out the logical chain of premises I've deductively built and point out flaws in yours, which I think is the way to go.
Do you feel that you're entitled to the telecom's money? Why does it matter to you if they make more or less money? It would not bother me if they would grow to be the richest companies in the world, as long as they built and traded everything they got voluntarily. In fact I would praise them for their efficiency, and being able to exchange with so many people.
If you don't like their services or products, then do not purchase them, and you are free from them just as if they did not exist in the universe. I don't see how can you be bothered with people trading with people besides due to jealousy! And please forgive me if I'm wrong.
If the cable companies are making such huge profits, then it's not even necessary to open their lines, any entrepreneur will seize the opportunity and build new lines + undercut them. The overcharging business will lose market share and therefore profits
Fact is, no isp is overcharging. Some may be more expensive than others, but only marginally so. The only way one could make huge profits over another is if they're extremelly efficient, or have government backing to stifle competition.
The latter is soon to happen if people are to swallow "net neutrality" regulation...
So should I be allowed to steal your car every now and then to stir things up?
Also, government is the ultimate monopoly. Whatever "monopoly" it breaks, simply is *it* taking over instead.
The monopoly word is thrown around too often. I suggest moving the discussion into free market entry.
If a lead business starts raising prices (like a monopoly holding people hostage! gasp!), as long as the market is free to enter, then it cannot raise as much as it would cost for an entrepreneur to enter it. If it does, then other business will flood the market to undercut him.
Did Bill Gates ever overprice windows and held the global market hostage?
Let go of the statist myth that they're saving us from ourselves, I beg you.
I should also add that government can never produce anything to raise the standards of living. It can only shuffle resources around trying to look good, but even on a collectivist standpoint, its just a zero-sum intervention.
Only people freely being able to transact and produce can increase a society's "value", if such a thing were to exist externally at all (does not).
Only individuals can decide what's best for themselves. An involuntary collective certainly cannot.
Just some food for thought, but you're not the only internet user who values freedom.
In fact I would bet that most do.
If most ISP clients like internet freedom, would you not agree that most ISPs would try to supply that demand as best as they can, so they can profit more?
What you call "intangibles" are not intangibles at all, it's part of consumer demand. Any decent entrepreneur today would not be making money without taking consumer demands in account to the full extent that the market can supply.
Now if what you really mean by intangibles are restrictions, force, war and taxes... that is something you should look for in government indeed.
If people use the internet less, the ISPs earn less. They have no incentive to do all that. Not any more than a shoe maker has an incentive to put spikes in his shoe pads
Has humanity also thrived due to slavery for a portion of time?
Who are you to say in history, that the forceful actions of a mob was good or bad for a collection of individuals?It certainly wasn't good for the slaves. And it certainly isn't good for the taxpayer. For the slave would rather be free, and the taxpayer would rather not pay taxes.
How is it that the collectivist cannot allow its neighbors to run a business in peace, but then insist that those same ignoramuses should participate in much more influential politics? Which is it, are people free to do as they may or not? Are we all so dumb that we need overlords, yet smart enough to vote the right ones in?
Sorry for going offtopic.
Except that there is no abuse nor violence in offering a service, one that you voluntarily engage with a contract.
If you want to find a true gang, look at the government. Everything it does, it does by force.
It is no issue for me identifying who's wrong. The shoe-seller, or the mob?
Is it exploiting people by offering them a job?
A job which you can quit if you don't like.
Quite the exploitation, huh.
I make your words mine.
essentially the argument against sweatshops is "the sweatshop workers don't know what's best for them and should do x"
no such thing as they "should" do this or that.
you have no claim over them, and you have no claim over the company. not your body, not your property, so stfu please.
they should be free to do what they want to do, just like you. You don't like their standards of living? Then why don't *you* do something and donate your capital to them, huh, instead of trying to force other people to. Ridiculous collectivist mindset.
I can't choose. It is chosen for me by >50% of my neighbors.
Still a monopoly regardless
One more thought. If vaccines always come to help the population after the virus has spread, wouldn't it be natural that people are becoming immune on their own, and the studies are flawed in the way that they're not accounting for natural immunization? The vaccine makers could be riding on the results of a naturally occurring phenomena, claiming to be their doing.
The only thing they're able to test for is antibody concentrations after all, which I don't think is the only goal of the immune system. There should also be experiments for reaction time, antibody buildup rate, general "helpfulness" against the disease, more other things... but what do I know, They can just claim it helps, and be done with it, it seems to convince most of the people anyways. which is the only thing they needed in a democracy. I apologize for my ignorance.
When the FDA approves a product the product also becomes a liability of the FDA, since they were the responsible people at testing it. The companies knowing that basically offset those testing costs to it, and lobby it like I said before.
If the FDA approves a product I think it makes it impossible to sue the company for it, in a governmental court, because it would be akin to discrediting the FDA on its job, a governmental agency. The chances of government prosecuting government in any major way is very unlikely, even more so if its corrupt.
There's nothing special about medication or food that makes it warrant a governmental regulatory body to oversight it. What recourse do you have against a bad shoe-maker? Against a fraudulent car dealer? Do we need oversight agencies for those as well? Maybe we already do have them, idk.
I don't have any anecdotal sources of my own, sorry. That's why I ask you.
And the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, which seems to go against your claim that it helped the outspread? If it helped, then... it wasn't by much, or was it?
On a side note, I hate taking it inductively because it always comes down to "who has the most numbers" which doesn't add anything to my understanding...