(07-20-2009 09:49 AM)Artifice Wrote: (07-18-2009 04:13 PM)Fo Shizzle Wrote: No evidence can be given of a long term market monopoly because there is ALWAYS an opportunity for someone to enter the marketplace and try to compete.
Strongly disagree with you here Fo - From Robber Barons, to Standard Oil, to Microsoft - there is such evidence.
Your knowledge of history is cliched, and in error.
I'd think you'd be better off addressing WalMart than Std Oil or Microsoft.
You don't think Microsoft has competition? Ever hear of Google? (And don't even get me going on how the gov't switched from Word Perfect, even as it was pursuing anti-trust issues).
Anyway Rockefeller's criticisms are long on hyperbole and short on fact.
Here's a tip: everything they taught you in 8th grade history wasn't true.
As for the robber barons, more proof that you are inaccurately describing the free market.
Quote:My point is that "free markets" is both a heavily bastardized/adulterated term in the modern political discourse, and unworkable as such an oversimplified ideology. I lean strongly towards localized competition (free markets), but recognize the issues that inherently plague a truly unregulated system, and the realities of the global economy of today.
I've used the NFL as a good, basic example of how regulated competition of multiple privately owned franchises can blossom. But, it is also a good example of an oligopoly as well - the barriers to entry for a competitor league are staggering, and like other industries, they'll just muscle out or buy out competition, if it ever comes together.
Well if you do know this then why do you post such absurd comments?
Yes the NFL has shut down other football leagues, although those often managed to destroy themselves far worse than the NFL (USFL, XFL). College football is every bit as big as the NFL, showing that the NFL does not have a true monopoly.
Furthermore, the NFL has competitors b/c its market is
entertainment. The NBA, NASCAR and MLB are competitors. The NFL has neither muscled nor bought out any of these competitors. In fact MNF got bullied by Vince McMahon's Monday Night Raw...showing the market will do what the market wants.