a libertarian view on Microsoft and monopolies

[Anarchist420]

http://fare.tunes.org/liberty/microsoft_monopoly.html

I also argue that Microsoft owes a lot of its success to the taxpayer. I'd go as far as to argue that they'd be no more than 2/5 of what they are if patents (monopolies) didn't exist.

Why do leftists claim to be against monopolies, yet at the same time they support them by supporting patents, tariffs, and central banking? Is their support for monopolies due to the fact that they don't know that natural monopolies aren't popular (as was evidenced by no natural company ever having more than 95% of a particular industry)? Their is no evidence of a natural (i.e., non-government subsidized) company ever having a true monopoly (i.e., 100% of a particular industry), which is because natural monopolies don't exist.

Antitrust legislation legislation that was actually anti-monopoly will never happen, because the government loves enriching cartels and because the antitrust legislation never defines a monopoly as a company that holds 100% of a particular industry's share.

People get the neoclassical theories confused with libertarianism, and that's a real problem. I think society will be better off when people realize that neoclassical economic theory is statism, not libertarianism.

How could anyone doubt that Bill Clinton and his admin knew that there is no such thing as a natural monopoly when his DoJ went after MS?

Nominally privately owned cartels can't handle confederalism, as is evident by the demographics of the population at the Constitutional Convention. The sooner more people wake the hell up and realize that, the better off society will be.

 

[shortylickens]

Technically they are a monopoly only in the sense that only Microsoft can make MS Windows.
They are not a monopoly in the OS sense because you have plenty of other options. If people choose to not exercise their options thats their business. But they exist.

 

[Pulsar]

I hate to point this out, and I hate even more to post in a 420 thread. However, I'll make an exception.

The United States is destroying it's world-wide economy by going after local monopolies. We need to change our laws.

Do you realize that a US company - AT&T, would rule the telecom market had we not broken it up? That means only good things for the US.

Now we've got Google: the US is going after them for being too good at what they do. Once again -a leader in business from the US that is getting beat on by our government.

When are we going to realize that big companies do better in a worldwide environment and readjust our policies?

 

[Anarchist420]

I hate to point this out, and I hate even more to post in a 420 thread. However, I'll make an exception.

The United States is destroying it's world-wide economy by going after local monopolies. We need to change our laws.

Do you realize that a US company - AT&T, would rule the telecom market had we not broken it up? That means only good things for the US.

Now we've got Google: the US is going after them for being too good at what they do. Once again -a leader in business from the US that is getting beat on by our government.

When are we going to realize that big companies do better in a worldwide environment and readjust our policies?

AT&T wasn't a natural monopoly, because natural monopolies don't exist. Google mises.org AT&T monopoly.

I'm perfectly fine with companies getting big on their own, but the fact that most big corporations benefit from the government is what bothers me. Whole Foods Market is an exception, of course, but few others are.

 

[soundforbjt]

Do you realize that a US company - AT&T, would rule the telecom market had we not broken it up? That means only good things for the US.

Are you arguing that breaking up Ma Bell was a bad thing? Are you old enough to remember the long distance rates before they were broken up?

 

[DaveSimmons]

AT&T was not good for consumers:
- High per-minute long distance rates
- Your choice of 3-4 phone models total. It used to be illegal to connect any third-party devices to their phone lines!
- Bell Labs kept answering machines and magnetic tape off the market for decades because some executive was afraid they would hurt phone use (this was just covered in Communications of the ACM)