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