Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

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I've made this point before on HN, from a slightly different angle. Part of the problem with capitalism is that it's a monopoly. From about 1930 to 1980, communism was a serious ideological competitor. Capitalism had to deliver a better standard of living or risk being overturned by vote or revolution. That kept capitalism honest.

This was a mainstream position. It was accepted that companies had to do well by their employees and the larger society, or something would be done to them by governments or unions. This was accompanied by boasting about "the American way", and that boasting was backed by reality. Things we view as acceptable behavior today, such as huge increases in the price of medicines, were not even considered. Mergers to the point of creating monopolies were rarely attempted and usually rejected.

But by the 1980s, it was clear that the USSR's system just wasn't working out. Capitalism had won. That's when it started acting like a monopoly, able to set the rules. This started in a big way with the deregulation of the 1980s and 1990s. This was justified by faith in a "free market".

But businesses didn't want a free market with many competitors. That keeps prices down and doesn't allow enough control. What resulted was repeated mergers, until most industries were dominated by a very few number of companies. This was promoted as desirable.[1] The US now has three big banks, three big drug-store chains, and three big cellular phone companies. None of those industries used to be that centralized.

So we've ended up with not only capitalism as a monopoly, but monopoly capitalism.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-for-...

> That keeps prices down and doesn't allow enough control. What resulted was repeated mergers, until most industries were dominated by a very few number of companies. This was promoted as desirable.

From the point of view of a single state, it can be desirable, provided said state keeps those companies on a tight leash to ensure the benefits are, to a high degree, captured for their own country. Internal competition eats into money for R&D and international competition. A big part of post-war Japan's success involved this sort of strategy: let a small number of large companies capture the domestic market, keep foreign competitors out, then set them loose on foreign markets while ensuring they cooperate where possible (R&D especially) for greater efficiency.

In my reading about American business going back to 1800, I don't see any of this "It was accepted that companies had to do well by their employees and the larger society". Capitalism did well by their employees and society because it worked. That's the beauty of free markets.

Capitalists, however, regularly tried to gain an advantage by manipulating the government into distorting the free market to give themselves an advantage.

> But businesses didn't want a free market with many competitors.

Those who own capital did not want competition, businesses never want competition but are forced by good governments to deal with it, in this case the government which the Capitalists own did nothing to stop them. SMEs were larger part of the US economy than big business. Now big business is using tech to destroy SMEs, or even various protected monopolies like taxis. These are not political decisions, they are capital backed decisions. They can be undone only with an organized populace. So far the propaganda war has been won by capital. But the populace is quickly becoming disillusioned by the American Dream. And so the rich have scapegoated immigrants. But that's only going to work for so long.'

Most growth in the US has been and continues to be captured by Capital. Entrepreneurs usually get a small piece... Capital does most of the work and those who own it eat most of the pie when it grows. Disparity grows and power becomes consolidated. They buy up more and more patents to keep competition out. They make third world countries into their bitch. It's a vicious cycle of perfected power consolidation that needs to be broken up. It's not healthy for anyone... other than idiot consumers that will buy anything advertised not caring about who is producing it, on what terms, and who it's hurting and whether or not it's sustainable. All things you buy have to be replaced and if there is no competition and all these monopolies than the things that you own, like you car, will eventually own you through the loan you will pay to buy it... Same goes with all things which will be reduced to services owned by a few which collect most of the profit.

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