Hacker News Reader

Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

Behold: Market participants using government to disable other market participants.

In this case since it's deed restrictions as part of the land/building sale it's not the government enforcing these restrictions, it's plain old contract law.

The government enforces all contracts, by having the power to impose the consequences of violating contracts. In this case, the government is not doing its anti trust duties resulting in harm to the public.

Perhaps it's just me, but I'm pretty glad that we don't have the government interfering with our every contracted act (a sale is such an act).

On the flip side, without the government to enforce a contract one party has broken, there would be no reason to ever fulfill a contract - you'd have to rely on citizen's force, and history has not shown that it's been particularly good to rely on regular citizens.

Just because a legal mechanism exists (adding a restriction to a deed as part of a private sale) does not mean that its use is legal. This is not "using" the government to disable other market participants, this is illegally abusing the mechanism of a deed restriction to monopolize a market and extort people.

> This is not "using" the government to disable other market participants, this is illegally abusing the mechanism of a deed restriction to monopolize a market and extort people.

Betting on government inaction for breaking the law is still using the government. If it is illegal, then a competing grocery store should be able to open its doors and any lawsuits thrown out. Considering Albertsons’ and other grocery store’s lawyers are not willing to bet on this, it must be clearly illegal, which is again, a problem the government has to solve.

the government doesn't go around enforcing contracts; the government provides a mechanism whereby a person who is wronged (by another party breaking their contract) can appeal and get some justice (without which you have the aggrieved party going over and shooting the other party).

a competing company could open a store there anyway and then fight the battle in court; they might even win, but the cost of the court case would prevent most companies from even trying, after all groceries are a relatively low margin business--if this were a gold mine instead of grocery store you can be sure someone would have opened it already and fought it in court

The government can also decree a simple ban on contracts that reduce competition. Similar to a ban on non compete contracts.

Any contract that intends to reduce the amount of buyers or sellers could be made unenforceable.

The way you are framing it suggests if the government (or another company) doesn't catch you and punish you then it's legal. Again, that is not "using" the government, that is committing a crime and hoping to get away with it.

This is clearly illegal, the fact that nothing has been done about it yet says nothing about it being legal or illegal. Just because a crime has been going on for years or is difficult to prove in court does not mean it is not a crime. As we type there are multiple monopolies that are illegal and could be tried in court but aren't. Those companies are not "using" the government to get away with it, they are using their money and influence to escape consequences for as long as possible. Again, call it what it is. A crime.

You said well, market using government. The government is just a tool used by capitalists.

Yea, I guess the communists and socialists and libertarians would all use different tools.

I mean, if the libertarians are to be believed they'd use some combination of disapproving looks and hired mercenaries (depending on how married they claim to be to the NAP) to enforce their perceived rights given there'd be little or no government framework available to even define what those rights might be much less enforce them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com