Submitted by smurfyjenkins t3_1027s43 in science
Reply to comment by Riversntallbuildings in European economies have developed stronger anti-trust regulations, more competitive markets, and more robust consumer protection than the US in the last 20 years. The reason for this is the EU. EU member states are incentivized to empower a strongly independent pro-competition regulator. by smurfyjenkins
What's wild is I got into an argument recently with someone who said collusion was fine as long as the company makes a profit. They couldn't understand why I would be against that and called me an anticapitalist as some big insult for being against collusion.
I can't understand why people would be so against antitrust regulations.
Yeah. Free markets are not free when bias and special treatment is allowed.
I am still mourning the loss of net neutrality for consumers in the U.S.
> is allowed
This is the irony. "Free" markets don't work without sufficient regulation.
Correct. Private enterprises will always look for, and find, ways to establish protected markets.
One of the specific cases I point to is when Hollywood clawed back the fair use rights that consumers won during the VHS era.
Content is content, and yet somehow, the courts allowed digital content (and digital markets) to be treated differently.
Free "markets" do, but what we have is a little bigger than a market nowadays. Social relations and reputation tended to follow you around back in the day, nowadays you can defraud millions of people before you get a reputation that might catch up to you for some people.
So yeah, we need regulation. but mostly because the concept of a market doesn't scale up perfectly from tens of millions of people to billions of people (due to the market now being more global than ever).
That was exactly what I was referring to though?
The fact that monopolists and unfair trade practices have always required regulation? That certainly doesn't sound like what you said. I mean this was from a time when the whole developed world was only a few tens of millions. But if you want to go back even further, check out Leviticus or Hammurabi's Code. There's a remarkable amount of ancient writing about trade disputes and the laws to deal with them. The very advent of writing was motivated by a need to better control commerce. The utopian ideal of a free market has never existed at any time in history. Belief in it is a religious faith and nothing more.
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When capitalism had to "compete" against communism as an economic system, there was more pressure to emphasize why capitalism works and is better than the alternative. Without a competing economic system, people assume that capitalism is inherently good without considering which criteria are relevant for such an assessment (other than "capitalism allows me to become rich).
Capitalism is no longer the appropriate term for what we have in the US. People need to stop blaming an economic system and look to the root of the problem, poor legislation and regulations. As an economic system capitalism is not inherently bad; it is our abuse of the legislative process for the financial gain of the few that is to blame for our disparities.
Many here think any capitalist economy will have it's legislation compromised by capital. Europe is only doing better than the US by contrast, I'm sure they still have their problems.
Most economies will be compromised since they are not properly insulated from market forces. I fully agree with your observation regarding Europe in contrast. They have many of the same problems, just different magnitudes.
Poor legislation & regulation is the outcome of neoliberal economic planning which sees the state have devolved interests in industry, which have become monopolies and duopolies with regulatory capture.
This is like saying that death by organ failure caused by cancer is not death by cancer. Regulatory capture is a feature of capitalism, not a bug.
Nope, it's a feature of republican democracy. And it is not at all like saying anything about death by organ failure blah blah blah. Quit it with the fallacies.
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How is it not a feature of capitalism? Republican democracy itself is compromised by capital...
Look mate, a system that says "greed is good" and yet expects that Lawmakers and Law-enforcers will work only for the good of the system (i.e. not be greedy) is about as utopian as bloody Communism.
The so called Crony Capitalism is the natural end state of Capitalism as those entrusted with the powers of the State just subvert it to get de facto immunity whilst they pillage it because, guess what, they're as greedy as everybody else and power attracts mainly those who don't feel the burden of responsability towards others when holding it.
The "solution" of less State (i.e Neoliberalism) is even worse as it makes Money the only Power in the land - reducing the power that citizens in democracies indirectly have through their vote - and that way lies either Anarchy or Feudalism (the latter if we're "lucky").
Personally I do believe we need some Capitalism, though heavilly overseen by something else so as to block it from subverting Democracy or destroying our societies through its main actors' natural tendency to cause Tragedy Of The Commons situations at pretty much all levels.
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>I can't understand why people would be so against antitrust regulations.
Because they think government regulation of any kind stifles innovation and is bad for markets, even government regulation that is specifically designed to encourage innovation and promote healthy markets.
It is a warped vision unless you like getting screwed by monopolies.
Capitalist propaganda over the last 50-60 years.
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