Free Market Capitalists, How should natural monopolies be addressed?

submitted by AntarchomachusAnarchist from (self.politics)

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[–]Chipit 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Regulation? It's generally to be shunned but it's unavoidable in certain cases.

Unfortunately as soon as the regulation starts, so does the corruption. It's a tough nut to crack. If government weren't so overwhelmingly awful it would work a lot better.

[–]la_cues 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

Yes I agree.

Some people think that once a market has any rules it is no longer "free", however I think laws could be restructured in a way that upholds the "free market" for the people, not for corporations.

Laws that would help:

Reduce barriers to entry. (Especially needless and stringent regulations, and those that have a high cost to meet. Many times these regulations are lobbied in, to make it easy for a corporation with millions of dollars to meet but impossible for the average citizen to meet; ie industrial level metal detecting for meat producers. Pointless regulation for small scale or family farms anyway!)

Abolish lobbying.

Abolish the idea of a "publicly held company".

Restructure systems like employment law for sole proprietorships.

Restructure tariff and import/export system? Restructure tax brackets? (Tax only at the corporate level, no tax for individuals)

Pretty much the laws should simply always prioritize the rights and freedoms of the individual. Then, I think economically more people would act in ways that would naturally not favour monopolies. Such as supporting community and local more, because Joe down the road actually can run his own dairy and he's not regulated out of the market by default.

edit: To touch on natural monopolies more specifically: I'm thinking the only truly fair way would have public infrastructure like water/electric be totally "nationalized" (I don't know what term to use on the municipal level?)

The "companies" that run the service exist wholeheartedly for the people, running at 0 profit and charging cost through toll to its users. (very important: don't tax everyone for a service if they may not use it)

[–]Chipit 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Reduce barriers to entry.

Regulations increase barriers to entry.

Abolish lobbying.

The companies that increase the barriers to entry will never tolerate this. They will use their wealth to corrupt the government regulators and prevent this.

[–]la_cues 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Regulations increase barriers to entry.

Not if the regulation specifically ONLY removes the potential power of a company in a "monopoly position".

So, a regulation that seeks to minimize regulations for the individual looking to engage in market.

[–]Chipit 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It would be nice if it worked that way. But it doesn't. There's too much money floating around in monopolies, and they can use that money to influence government regulators who are all too open to being bribed. After their term they go to work for the monopolies at high salary.