The president admires capitalism?

[William Wallace]

Every agent in the free market has set as its goal the knocking out of the competition, in order to have the biggest market share. Meaning, unless there are circumstances in place to prevent it, a market will consolidate on one player, meaning the market principles stopped working. It's been seen enough that essentially every country in this world has anti-trust laws in place to prevent monopolies.

It would be ludicrous to not see this as an inherent shortcoming of the free market that needs to be adjusted for.

rumborak

This is the exception and not the rule, to the point that the "robber barons" scenario has been laughed out of the academic literature. The trouble generally doesn't stem from a business doing what they do well; it stems from inappropriate relationship between regulators and industry.

[ReaPsTA]

Every agent in the free market has set as its goal the knocking out of the competition, in order to have the biggest market share. Meaning, unless there are circumstances in place to prevent it, a market will consolidate on one player, meaning the market principles stopped working. It's been seen enough that essentially every country in this world has anti-trust laws in place to prevent monopolies.

It would be ludicrous to not see this as an inherent shortcoming of the free market that needs to be adjusted for.

rumborak

No company can magically become so powerful they are immune to competition.  The only way a monopoly can happen is if a company somehow manages to lock out opposing competitors.  In fairness, this isn't impossible, but much rarer than people think.  Preventing this through regulation is difficult, because it's hard to craft broad laws to handle the specificity of each merger.

[rumborak]

No company can magically become so powerful they are immune to competition.  The only way a monopoly can happen is if a company somehow manages to lock out opposing competitors.  In fairness, this isn't impossible, but much rarer than people think.  Preventing this through regulation is difficult, because it's hard to craft broad laws to handle the specificity of each merger.

It's much more common than you think rather. Big companies swallow new entities to get them off the market, sue them with patent suits, or do price dumping to bleed them out. Have seen it in live action in my previous company, and they have a virtual monopoly in their market segment.

rumborak

[Super Dude]

Good points all, rumby.  Also I'd like to point out:

I think he probably believes in doing things so that the most successive corporations are able to stay that way without really having to compete or work hard to keep their status.

Which means he's as much as a capitalist as Bush was.

The whole point of capitalism is that successful corporations have to compete and work hard to keep their status.  So what Obama is doing isn't capitalistic.  Unless the definition of the word changed on me.

It changed on you when all the big business tycoons and pro-corporate welfare crowd starting calling themselves "capitalists," even as they accepted unfair, government-sponsored advantages; and when all the Republican constituents drank the Kool-Aid, believing nothing was strange about any of it.

I mean, those big business tycoons and corporate bigwigs are capitalists.  It seems somehow that just as people equate socialism with "bad," there seems to be this seeming association between capitalism and "good."  I'm not saying capitalism isn't good, but you can't say these corporate people aren't capitalists, just because they don't play fair.  The fact that they take advantage of the market and politics doesn't mean they're not capitalists; they can do what they do because they thrive in a capitalist system.

Long story short: free market or regulated market, it doesn't matter.  There will ALWAYS be someone who wants to take unfair advantage of the system.  At least with a regulated market you can do things to keep corporations from getting TOO powerful.

And that's another thing: you think the big oil and other industries are using and abusing their financial power now?  Wait and see what it looks like under a free market, when they can legally shut all competitors out of a business, and no one will lift a finger because they technically can do that.

[ReaPsTA]

No company can magically become so powerful they are immune to competition.  The only way a monopoly can happen is if a company somehow manages to lock out opposing competitors.  In fairness, this isn't impossible, but much rarer than people think.  Preventing this through regulation is difficult, because it's hard to craft broad laws to handle the specificity of each merger.

It's much more common than you think rather. Big companies swallow new entities to get them off the market, sue them with patent suits, or do price dumping to bleed them out. Have seen it in live action in my previous company, and they have a virtual monopoly in their market segment.

rumborak

The two I bolded are examples of locking out competition, which I do think hurts the existence of a free market.

I mean, those big business tycoons and corporate bigwigs are capitalists.  It seems somehow that just as people equate socialism with "bad," there seems to be this seeming association between capitalism and "good."  I'm not saying capitalism isn't good, but you can't say these corporate people aren't capitalists, just because they don't play fair.  The fact that they take advantage of the market and politics doesn't mean they're not capitalists; they can do what they do because they thrive in a capitalist system.

What's your definition of the word capitalist?

Long story short: free market or regulated market, it doesn't matter.  There will ALWAYS be someone who wants to take unfair advantage of the system.  At least with a regulated market you can do things to keep corporations from getting TOO powerful.

This sounds nice.  But the result is that the government gives power to companies they could never get in a free market.  The Comcast monopoly wouldn't be able to exist in a free market.

And that's another thing: you think the big oil and other industries are using and abusing their financial power now?  Wait and see what it looks like under a free market, when they can legally shut all competitors out of a business, and no one will lift a finger because they technically can do that.

What could they do under a free market that they aren't doing now?