Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!cca!ima!inmet!nrh
From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re:Big Corporations 'filling the vac
Message-ID: <1951@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 9-Feb-85 01:44:50 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.1951
Posted: Sat Feb  9 01:44:50 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Feb-85 02:17:44 EST
Lines: 94
Nf-ID: #R:whuxl:-46800:inmet:7800297:000:4466
Nf-From: inmet!nrh    Feb  7 12:14:00 1985

>***** inmet:net.politics / whuxl!orb /  3:33 am  Feb  7, 1985
> 
>You're right! I am quite sure that big corporations will not enforce
>worker's rights to grievance procedures, the eight hour day, antipollution
>laws, or safety regulations in industry. 

Indeed not.  That's why the corporations you're thinking of would
*NOT* be the ones asked to enforce antipollution laws.
(As for the others, they are clearly matters of contract between 
workers or unions and the corporations involved).  Antipollution
laws would be enforced either via nuisance-laws suits or 
minimal-government action, depending on which type of libertarian
society you end up with.  It's not hard to see Arbitration becoming
as big an industry as Jurisprudence is now, and it's not hard to
see arbiters finding for individuals against smokestack industries.

>On the other hand, as I have previously pointed out, Standard Oil
>at the turn of the century controlled 99% of the oil industry in the
>U.S.  While free market devotees keep trying to wish this fact away
>by somehow ascribing it to "government regulation" they have yet to
>specify exactly what government regulations led to this situation.

Goodness me.  I believe it's been pointed out several times: monopolies
may exist, but they are short-lived in the free market.  I myself
posted a lengthy article showing Cornplanter Refineries growing 20%
a year for 10 years before the Antitrust suit against Standard.
Libertarians, have not, so far as I know, claimed that Standard's
monopoly was due to government regulation (note to mck -- chalk
up another Straw Man to Sevener unless he can furnish a quote)
but merely that government regulation appears to be the only way
to make monopolies stable.  

>Nor do they specify how the miraculous free market is going to bring
>countervailing political pressure to challenge such control.

That's easy -- take a look at what's happening to OPEC now.
They still control an enormous amount of oil, but have been forced
to lower their prices to match non-opec suppliers.  I doubt
we'll ever see $0.30/barrel oil again -- that price was low,
but (and this was headline news in Mass) we've seen under-a-dollar-a-gallon
gas again.

>We have seen what an amorphous grouping of nations with varying aims
>and interests can do to the world economy with the example of OPEC's
>oil embargo.  What would be the effects of having the entire domestic
>oil industry under *one* unified corporation?  

Every socialist should ask himself (or herself, but I'll drop the 
distinction from here on in) this question.   To phrase it just
a little differently:  What would be the effects of having the
entire domestic industry (oil and otherwise) under *one* body
of controllers?  Say, the US Congress?  Really Tim -- the 
monopoly implication just doesn't hold up -- take a look at OPEC:
there was no "world antitrust law" to shackle them, and yet they're
breaking up.

>Or how about  other
>industries which could potentially become monopolies?

You'd better demonstrate that "monopoly" can be other than a short-lived
condition before you start asking people to worry about it, or do you
LIKE misrepresenting the situation?

>IBM has been constrained from even greater control of the computer market
>by the successful suit by CDC and other rival computer manufacturers.

Well of course!  If the antitrust laws exist do you expect people NOT to 
use them?  It's EASIER than competing directly.  This does NOT mean
that IBM would be able to hold onto a monopoly -- merely that the
most convenient way of preventing this was exercised.  Good heavens!
Do you tell people that you only got breakfast because your butler
got it for you?  Do you expect them to believe that if you had
no butler you would get no breakfast?

>I have seen no suggestions for antitrust activity or steps to insure
>that the free market assumptions of many buyers and sellers are met in
>Libertarian proposals.

Tim:  we needn't write the law of gravity into legislation in order
for it to work, nor do we need a law REQUIRING the NORMAL outcome
of economic life.  And finally, think about it:  the Market works
BEST when there are many buyers and sellers, but (and perhaps someone
who knows more economics than I can supply more information) it
STILL works, and I'll bet, works better than central planning
even when there are FEW sellers and buyers.

>          JCL FOREVER!!!!
> 
>tim sevener  whuxl!orb
>----------


Nat Howard