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Whereupon I unsubscribe from Matt Stoller
I had long considered Stoller to have solid analysis and a respect for markets, even when I didn't agree with his political slant, editorial direction, or choice of topics. But he has lost me here, and probably forever, in his simpering defense of the Harris economic plan, which includes price controls on groceries and vague yet sinister crackdowns on so-called price gouging.
Someone hasn't read The Road To Serfdom. I'm actually kind of flabbergasted to see this, though I shouldn't be surprised.
I’m not at certain what her price controls are. I know the food production end of things (not the stores) is highly consolidated into a couple of big companies that therefore own most of the food market. Breaking up those monopolies seems like a good way to get grocery priced down a bit. If that’s what she’s actually proposing, I would support it. But she hasn’t been very clear on what her plan actually is.
I strongly don't believe breaking up these "monopolies" will do anything other than raise prices.
In order to be an entity with monopoly powers you need to be the only game in town. An oligopoly can imitate monopoly power if they are all coordinating (and punishing defectors).
The problem with calling single producers of a product a monopoly is that substitution is a thing that exists. There could be a single company that produces strawberries and all strawberry related products and they would not have a single bit of monopoly power. Hell, they could probably expand to all fruit products and still not have much monopoly power. Because people can eat different kinds of food. Even if someone cornered the entire grocery market they would still not have monopoly power. Because restaurants and fast food exists and some of the larger chains are their own suppliers.
It is basically impossible to gain any level of monopoly power in the modern day food market. If anyone says there are food monopolies they are either lying, or using a non-economic definition of monopolies. Its fine if they use a non-economic definition of monopolies, economists don't own the word. But these people often say "this company is a [non-economic] monopoly, so we need to do what economists say to do about [economic] monopolies".
I can't say I'm an expert on monopolies, but I'm beginning to think that with today's informational velocity and the past ~100 years of legal precedent, it's nearly impossible to actually function as a monopoly.
The term monopoly conjures up images of John D. Rockefeller and other robber barons. I know just enough history to be aware that the practices of Standard Oil in the early 20th century are now patently illegal at a variety of levels, not just at the level of anti-monopoly. I mean, for one, it's pretty evident that Standard Oil was routinely offering kickbacks aka bribes all up and down their operation. One thing America has actually become pretty damn good at is making bribery a really bad business strategy.
But the 8th grade textbook of monopoly still owns an unreasonable amount of mindshare in the minds of activist politicians and bureaucrats. Lina Khan loves to get up in the morning and begin the next chapter of her "I'm the main character heroine fighting evil money dragons" autobiography.
Inflation, inefficiency, and capital appreciation malaise are what has and will continue to kill the middle and working classes. Government do-gooders operate under the flawed assumption that they can (a) understand the complexities of the dynamic system that is the economy and (b) craft laser precise legislation or regulation that will target only "the bad thing" and have zero unanticipated or secondary effects. It really is an alarming level of intellectual hubris.
Its always been quite easy to become a monopoly. The trick is to get government to make it happen for you. The post office still jealously guards its first class mail monopoly.
The history of Standard Oil is very frustrating to learn. They were an efficient modern business way before its time. If there were kickbacks along the rail line it was because everyone had to do some version of that. They were something like 90% market share when the government brought a case against them for monopoly. By the time the case resolved against them they were about 60% market share. There was also a war about to happen and the government wanted access to the resource for cheap so they nationalized part of standard oil. Standard Oil created most of the Oil byproducts that we have today. All of their competitors were dumping toxic waste chemicals into rivers. They thought 'how can we use this "waste" instead of throwing it out?'
I was on capital hill briefly about a decade ago. And yes they are constantly looking for badies to fight. Back then they kept complaining how google has a "search" monopoly. Which showed a hilarious lack of understanding of google's actual business model (advertising), and an insulting level of paternalism assuming that people were somehow "stuck" with google search.
I went more in depth on the history back in my college days. And the only thing that has really changed is the ability of government propaganda to cover things up. They've gotten worse at that. Even when the economy was much simpler they routinely failed to bring in good regulations.
From what I have heard from friends with direct experience, it is a "children with dynamite" situation. You've got mid-20s to mid-30s people without any real world experience who think they can understand and entire industry / social problem / international conflict after a few briefings. Then, they have access to the actual fucking Federal legislative process. The formula for disaster is obvious.
It's a good thing bills move so slowly through Congress. I think more Americans would agree with this if they understood who the primary authors are.
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