Comment by WalterBright
1 day ago
> When resources and opportunities get concentrated at the top of the pyramid
In a free market system, wealth is created, not concentrated.
1 day ago
> When resources and opportunities get concentrated at the top of the pyramid
In a free market system, wealth is created, not concentrated.
Why do you see those two processes as orthagonal?
It does both! There is no natural law which prevents the formation of a monopoly.
> It does both!
No, it does not concentrate wealth. Wealth is not a fixed pie. In a free market, you get wealthy by creating wealth, not concentrating it.
As for monopolies, competition is what prevents them.
Every market exists within a regulatory system, which exerts power over the participants in the market. Using wealth, you can acquire influence, and thereby direct the power of the regulatory system to inhibit your competition, or create a legal monopoly for yourself. A free market is not magic; people have to make it happen, and people have many motivations beyond the freedom of markets.
> In a free market, you get wealthy by creating wealth, not concentrating it.
You can do either, or both.
This sounds incredibly naive. Competition does not magically prevent monopolies -- once you have a dominant player they just buy or undercut the occasional competing startup.
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Unregulated capitalism inevitably trends towards a mafia state with an oligarchic structure and concentrated monopolistic power. It’s just an empirical fact at this point.
The engine that really drives innovation and wealth creation is regulated capitalism that preserves competitive markets by restraining anticompetitive behavior.
If you’re ideologically attached to capitalism I have good news for you. That’s the approach that leads to its most effective implementation.
If you’re ideologically attached to “market fundamentalism” as I suspect, which is a reflexive opposition to regulation, then this concentrated market structure is what you’re advocating for.
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