Comment by nickpp
5 years ago
The only unbeatable way companies control the market is through government-granted monopoly. Any other way is eventually defeated by the market itself.
Every government intervention in the market will benefit established players and will hinder startups and thus the markets's self-regulating mechanisms.
This is an extreme counterexample, but doesn't the fact that the government will prosecute large companies that order hit squads to assassinate startup employees count as an "intervention"?
There are many other cases where I'd be very uncomfortable trusting these so-called "self-regulatinf mechanisms", e.g. the abolition of slavery, child labour, and racial/sexual employment discrimination.
All that is illegal behavior. Markets require the rule of law too and nobody is disputing the role of governments to implement and uphold the law.
Moreover, none of those things were always illegal. There was a time where it was not obvious that they should be illegal. Yet, despite the relatively laisez faire economics of the 19th century (in the UK at least), these behaviours were not simply self-regulated away. That required government intervention in the form of passing laws and ensuring that the law was followed.
Price fixing is also illegal behaviour, but my impression is that you're more relaxed about that?