The idea of a free market is that there aren’t any regulations or laws regarding enterprise, so monopolies would be more difficult to establish because there aren’t any legislative or regulatory hurdles that a newcomer has to overcome. If the monopoly still manages to survive despite competition, then the monopoly is earned because the company is obviously still able to maintain a stranglehold on the market despite competitors popping up.
Ignoring the ramifications it’d have on healthcare and food quality, on paper this isn’t the worst idea that’s ever been had, because while it does allow for monopolies, it also means that companies can’t claim patents, copyright, trade secrets, or strangle the competition with regulatory or legislative capture.
In reality it requires an educated consumer that always does their research before buying a thing. That’s not realistic as the average consumer wants to be able to just walk into a supermarket, buy some groceries, and walk back out again. Unsurprisingly, no one wants to go through three search engines and a bunch of research papers from their local library to figure out whether or not their frozen waffles contain asbestos.
If the monopoly still manages to survive despite competition, then the monopoly is earned because the company is obviously still able to maintain a stranglehold on the market despite competitors popping up.
In practice, the dominant player in the industry can operate at a loss to drive the upstart competition out of business, buy their assets for pennies on the dollar, then jack their prices up again when there are no alternatives. Or, if you don’t like that one, choose any of the numerous anti-competitive strategies in use today.
If people collectively saw that behavior and said “We’re not buying from you anymore”, they could put that company out of business, but that simply isn’t realistic when dealing with such a large number of individuals. So it continues to work.
Without regulating anti-competitive behavior, monopolies are inevitable and competing without an initial bankroll capable of operating at a loss for as long or longer than the existing monopoly is impossible.
The idea of a free market is that there aren’t any regulations or laws regarding enterprise, so monopolies would be more difficult to establish because there aren’t any legislative or regulatory hurdles that a newcomer has to overcome. If the monopoly still manages to survive despite competition, then the monopoly is earned because the company is obviously still able to maintain a stranglehold on the market despite competitors popping up.
Ignoring the ramifications it’d have on healthcare and food quality, on paper this isn’t the worst idea that’s ever been had, because while it does allow for monopolies, it also means that companies can’t claim patents, copyright, trade secrets, or strangle the competition with regulatory or legislative capture.
In reality it requires an educated consumer that always does their research before buying a thing. That’s not realistic as the average consumer wants to be able to just walk into a supermarket, buy some groceries, and walk back out again. Unsurprisingly, no one wants to go through three search engines and a bunch of research papers from their local library to figure out whether or not their frozen waffles contain asbestos.
In practice, the dominant player in the industry can operate at a loss to drive the upstart competition out of business, buy their assets for pennies on the dollar, then jack their prices up again when there are no alternatives. Or, if you don’t like that one, choose any of the numerous anti-competitive strategies in use today.
If people collectively saw that behavior and said “We’re not buying from you anymore”, they could put that company out of business, but that simply isn’t realistic when dealing with such a large number of individuals. So it continues to work.
Without regulating anti-competitive behavior, monopolies are inevitable and competing without an initial bankroll capable of operating at a loss for as long or longer than the existing monopoly is impossible.