8 ms·
End consolidation. Go back to pre-1980s antitrust policy. Encourage competition and bust the trusts.
by dd36 4mo ago
End consolidation. Go back to pre-1980s antitrust policy. Encourage competition and bust the trusts.
- N_Lens 4mo ago[flagged]
- jagged-chisel 4mo agoI thought “socialism” was the current bogeyman
- micromacrofoot 4mo agomost americans don't know the difference
- red-iron-pine 4mo agomost americans can't define woke
- graemep 4mo agoIts called "free market capitalism". I have been in favour of it for decades: https://pietersz.co.uk/2009/11/fix-capitalism https://pietersz.co.uk/2009/11/fix-capitalism I am somewhat more inclined to some socialist policies now though.
- nekusar 4mo agoIn my experience, most self-proclaimed "capitalists" either lap up the scholastic propaganda that capitalism is the 'bestest' economic system in the world, or are a real capitalist and don't have to give one fuck about what others say. And most of these types NEVER read past, say, page 20 of https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38194/38194-h/38194-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38194/38194-h/38194-h.htm , Adam Smiths treatise on capitalism. Here's a few failures that Smith wrote back in his initial treatise in 1776. I think so far, we're failing every one of these, and basically speedrunning all the terrible warnings Smith wrote about as accomplishments. Gross inequality was even mentioned there as something to significantly avoid. Book I, Ch. X, Part II; ~p. 50 Principal-agent problems in joint-stock companies. Managers of other people's money "cannot be expected to watch over it with the same anxious vigilance" as owners, leading to waste and negligence. Book V, Ch. I, Part III; ~p. 312-313 Mercantilist policy distortions. Protectionism, export bounties, and import restrictions enrich narrow merchant interests while reducing national wealth by intentionally misallocating capital. Book IV, Ch. II-V; ~p. 183-213 Underprovision of public goods. Markets fail to supply infrastructure (roads, bridges, canals, harbors) and institutions that benefit society broadly but yield no direct profit to private actors. Book V, Ch. I, Part III, Art. I; ~p. 303-305. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-cities-infrastructure-repair-cost-study-b2970689.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-cities-... Dehumanizing effects of extreme division of labor. Repetitive specialized labor "renders [the worker] as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become," impairing civic and moral capacities. Book V, Ch. I, Part III, Art. II; ~p. 324 . Even in the 1800's this got so bad that Karl Marx wrote about this in both of his critique of capitalism AND the communist manifesto. Merchant collusion and monopoly power. Smith warns that "people of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices". Book I, Ch. X, Part II; ~p. 54 . Hello, eggs, meat packers,oil products (gasoline), grocery chains, electronics (RAM), health care. Collusion after collusion, and almost no enforcement. Im not communist, and probably not socialist. But its clear as day as to the failures of capitalism. And as a stopped clock is right 2x a day, capitalism does handle some problems better than any previous system. But we can do better. Lots better. But the entrenched power holds on to capitalism as fervent as a religion, and not dispassionate analysis.
- mghackerlady 4mo agofree market capitalism will always end like this though. the end goal of capitalism is the consolidation of all things into a megacorporation or oligarchy that controls everything, creates nothing, and earns infinite money
- tavavex 4mo agoWhy is this downvoted? To me, it seems like a self-evident conclusion. Even the supporters of the current system would probably agree with it. When you have a system that encourages endless growth at absolutely all costs, while placing no limits at the amount of power a single entity can hold, what other outcome can there be but the biggest players absorbing everything into themselves and using their influence over people and governments to guarantee their dominance?
- mghackerlady 4mo ago(I agree, but generally commenting about downvotes isn't something we do here from what I've seen)
- tavavex 4mo agoI didn't comment just to complain about them, though, but to tell people who leave them to elaborate on why.
- forshaper 4mo agoWe haven't had a free market in the United States in awhile. It's public-private partnered market fixing. Which is good for the consumer, many times, though not all the time.
- amazingamazing 4mo agoHow will that work - for example Y Combinator classes. They cannot be acquired? What about acquihires? Cant stop that - employees have their own agency.
- jgalt212 4mo agoI think 5-15 person employee businesses do not concern trust busters.
- amazingamazing 4mo agoWhats the connection between the number of employees and anti trust? Also, there are plenty of YC companies with far more than 15 employees.
- estearum 4mo agoGenerally you don't hold a market dominant position in any sector that anti-trust regulators care about at 15 employees? Frankly this stuff is impossible to talk about in the abstract. The details of every individual case matters. If you're actually curious (instead of just playing a shell game), you can go look up the types of analysis that FTC does to evaluate market dominance and whether a given transaction will excessively consolidate a market.
- Ekaros 4mo agoIf the acquirer has too big or dominant position already in the specific sector no. They should not be able to sweep the board of all companies doing single thing.
- toomuchtodo 4mo agoIf the acquirer attempts to acquire a startup (regardless of investor) for anti trust reasons, or there are anti trust concerns, the M&A activity is disallowed by regulators. A recent example is Figma and Adobe. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Figma%20Adobe&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- jonstewart 4mo agoStatutory antitrust regulation would be fantastic. Instead of litigation, the regulators, corporations, and shareholders know when a business must split or divest. The firm files a plan, it gets approved, everyone wins except monopolists.
- smallmancontrov 4mo agoProgressive business taxes. At a certain income level, natural pressure starts mounting to split.
- jonwachob91 4mo agoelaborate on this line of thought please.
- canyp 4mo agoNot OP but a progressive tax generally scales non-linearly to tax higher brackets a higher %. So then you have an increasingly lower / decreasing incentive to make even more money. Many countries already have a progressive tax on income, but that is irrelevant to business profits.
- smallmancontrov 4mo agoYep, exactly. There's an easy way to make it gradual, too: put the "heel" of the progressive tax above where the largest American companies are and let inflation bring them into the curve. They can either pay a tax cost not to split, or they can split. Alternatively, don't. I expect this proposal to be popular with executives regardless because it creates new spots for executives, just as it does with lower-flying labor.
- thmsths 4mo agoNot a bad idea honestly. Would be interesting to see how it affects tech companies since they rely on hypergrowth. My one worry is that instead of divesting they would just play shell games with complex ownership structures.
- muddi900 4mo agoThe pre 1980s standards were ridiculous though. However, even if the US moves to some 3 quarters of the way towards now would be a huge improvement. The "consumer harm" standard is idiotic.
- mmooss 4mo agoWould you share a more detailed argument? Right now we only have adjectives: "ridiculous", "idiotic". The US economy generally did very well with those standards, maybe the best it ever did, especially considering distribution of benefits.
- slibhb 4mo ago> The US economy generally did very well with those standards Spurious correlation. Few experts (economists) think old regulations caused economic growth. If we really want to recreate post-war growth, we should destroy half our infastructure and fight a world war. Then, in the years following the end of that war, we can experience catch-up growth.
- mmooss 4mo agoSpurious strawperson. I didn't say they caused it, but they sure didn't stop it. I specifically said it was about distribution, not aggregate growth. There's still no argument for the GGP presented. > the years following the end of that war Until the 1980s? I think some evidence is needed.
- muddi900 4mo agoThis is a good podcast on the old regime: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/696337392 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/696337392 Summary of the old regime: Mergers that lead to 5+% market share were blocked. Then the "consumer harm in terms of prices" was adopted. Which swung the pendulum the other way. That is the fundamental economic policy now. Which has lead to abhorrent results. I wrote a comment on previous post that was about how consumer harm standards have warped the discussion on tariffs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48096236 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48096236