Tag: Monopoly

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Accountability free trade & free markets national politics & policies property rights too much government

Three, Three, Three Mints in One!

monopoly, Microsoft, Google, Chrome, competition, cooperation

Microsoft just announced an innovation that might give folks who fear business behavior — or are extremely skeptical of the positive public outcome of markets — pause.

The Bellevue, Washington, company is adding Google calendar connectivity for its Macintosh users of Outlook 2016.

[Pause.]

You see, monopolies give us the willies. We do not trust them. Yet, despite our fears and suspicions, big business activity in a free market does not lead inevitably to One Corporation Ruling Them All. Or chaos.

Why believe that? This Microsoft Outlook story.

Most folks’ worries about monopoly come down to fear of out-​of-​control competition. In many industries, for the industry to work, there must be general cooperation among competitors. (Think of telephones and electricity distribution, etc.) The reason many people* want to regulate “natural monopolies” is that it seems only natural that businesses would balk at working together on shared standards — they would balk at any form of cooperation … they’re competitors, dagnabbit!

But evidence of competitors cooperating for consumer good is all around us. The classic case? Railroads, when the rail gauges in America were standardized to 4′ 9″ — without government edict.

The current case? This, where one of the three biggest computer outfits in the world offers customers on a competitive platform (Apple) easy syncing with a company that competes directly with it as well as its platform competitor (Google).

Why do this?

The better to serve their customers. As much as Microsoft might want to shun their competitors’ products, its customers do not share that view.

And that is enough.

Welcome to free-​market capitalism.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.**

 

* It is worth noting that economists have a different concern regarding natural monopolies. Something about “cost curves.” Meanwhile, the opposite fear — of cooperation among businesses when cooperation would be generally harmful (price fixing) — has been an issue dealt with by economists since Adam Smith.

** Full disclosure: this came to my attention courtesy of a story on Apple’s News app.

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Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

Monopoly Phony

Why is New Jersey Governor Chris Christie against profit?

You expect such an idea from a leftist. The big man is no leftist.

Christie’s anti-​profit bias came up within a long, rambling answer to the subject of a recent bill in the New Jersey legislature to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. He’s against it. But he’s been for “medical” marijuana. Ed Krayewski of Reason quotes the governor, who insists that legal cannabis distribution “be a hospital-​based program, that way the profit motive is drained out a lot from it.”

I get his logic. He doesn’t want recreational use, but realizes there are legitimate medical uses. To allow the latter but discourage the former, he wants to monopolize the sale of the drug.

It’s the old “monopoly” idea leveraged to discourage over-​use. Post-​Prohibition, many states set up liquor control boards and sold liquor in state-​owned or state-​franchised stores. My state, Virginia, still does. They raised prices on the product, and made it harder to get. More monopoly, higher cost, less product.

But turn the subject on its head.

We want medicine to be cheaper. More accessible and more efficiently delivered.

So why do states limit the setting up of hospitals with hospital boards? Why the prescription system? Why, even, medical licensing? After all, quality controls can be imposed other ways.

Modern medicine has been subjected to monopolistic practices and cartelizing regulations for years. Decades. A century.

Such intervention limits supply and availability, and increases costs.

I suspect that Gov. Christie hasn’t really thought his position all the way through.

(He might be high on government.)

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies responsibility too much government

The Trademark of Irresponsible Politicians

Who doesn’t agree with President Obama? “We simply cannot continue to spend as if deficits don’t have consequences,” he said when introducing his budget in February.

But who believes he’s serious? He went on to say that we must not treat “the hard-​earned tax money of the American people … like Monopoly money.” Yet, by spending at hyper-​deficit levels and offering no reasonable plan to balance the budget, he demonstrates a preference to play Monopoly™, not Responsibility®.

Now, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan has a plan. He spelled it out Tuesday, giving it a hopeful moniker, “The Path to Prosperity.”

“Prosperity’s Around the Corner” was already taken in the noösphere.

The most salient feature of the plan, though, is that it designed to take its own sweet time. The budget wouldn’t balance next year. Or the year after. Or even in five, like Sen. Rand Paul’s much better plan. 

Besides, today’s Congress can’t control itself must less control future Congresses. That’s the trouble with all these procrastinating plans.

Remember, even Rand Paul thinks his plan takes too long and doesn’t go far enough.

Of course, Obama dislikes Ryan’s plan. The new White House press secretary offers, “The President believes there is a more balanced way to put America on a path to prosperity.”

But he won’t share it with us. Obama and congressional Democrats are playing the oldest game in the book: All talk but no responsibility.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.