To be fair, I was using the term “unregulated”, ironically.
“Monopolies are a natural end to an unregulated market” meaning companies, particularly larger ones can easily out-price the newer ones, out of a market. They have the established capital to do so. Also, they have better political advantages as well. They can push for regulations making it difficult for start-ups to continue operating, or even begin. The “Food Truck” craze is one example. The brick and mortar shops found competition from mobile food sources, and used their political clout to push the newbies away from them. That is not a free market.
Libertarians argue that the market will take care of itself, and thus avoid monopolies. Real life, this has never happened.
You either have 100% regulated, or 100% unregulated market. But, even that is a fallacy. How would you make sure an unregulated market stays unregulated?
Completely agree that so called freemarkets will end up being captured eventually.
Most of the richest people in the world have achieved this by capturing monopoly positions in their markets. Carlos Slim, Buffet, Gates, Bezos.
You name it the market is wrapped up by two or three local companies here .
Formosa oil and CPC.
President and RTMart and Chuanlien
Zhonghua Telecom and Taiwan mobile (ok few more choices)
MOD and maybe one vendor each district
Taipower/gas/water
It’s not all bad cos the govt subsidises a lot of stuff, but then you don’t get much advancement in the govt sectors.
Back to topic. My hope is that D. Trump is out of office before he can start a war against N. Korea. 2018 looks very precarious to me. There are quite a few early signs that it could go really bigly badly for all of us here in Asia and then the rest of the world.
People in/from the East and West Coast should get it real right now. It’s time to stop seeing California or New York as the whole U.S.A.
That guy apparently has more supporters than antagonists in the whole U.S.A.
That’s why he won the election despite all his ridiculous talks and controversies.
There’re a lot more people out there in the rest 48 States and they support that guy wholeheartedly.
Sure they do. It was the Russians, Wikileaks, Comey, sexists, misogynists, white supremacists (?), bigots, racists, evangelicals, male chauvinist pigs, anti-globalists, the DNC. It was everybody’s fault except for Hillary’s. Duh…
Not all liberals are anti-gun. My father was as bleeding heart as they came, and he hoarded like militiaman. Not only did he support the 2nd amendment, he thought it was unconstitutional that it only has been applied to firearms. He actively supported the private ownership, sale, and manufacture of everything, including nuclear weapons.
In a way, he has a point. The 2nd amendment makes no reference to any limitation of arms. It in no way defines what “arms” are. Using the most liberal interpretation of the constitution, any legislative or court action to prohibit limit any weapons, is inherently, unconstitutional. Unless you believe the document, as a whole, leaves wiggle room for the government to take necessary measures to insure security of its people.
Your dad sounds more like a bleeding heart libertarian. At least he wasn’t a constitution-hating progressive. The country may be polarized, but it’s still a complex continuum. In the agricultural county in Oregon where I’m staying now, people mostly vote Democrat, and recreational marijuana is fully legal. At the same time, gun ownership is extremely high. But looking at the country as a whole, gun ownership is generally highest (and murder rates of course lowest) in red counties.
