Thread by @matthewstoller on Thread Reader App
@matthewstoller: 1. This is a holy $&$#& story of corruption and threats from Amazon, where their head lobbyist was caught on tape. First, the small stuff. It shows Amazon regularly buys off academics, in this case...…
Studied a lot of economics in my years. Let me give you what I believe is the truth:
Monopolies in a capitalist system function differently than the monopolies we know. Take a couple obvious ones: Auto, Airline, Telecom, Utility, Healthcare, Tech, Rail.
They all have some sort of government involvement, whether it be: regulatory, direct funding, heavy taxation, favorable legislation, the list goes on.
They create artificially high barriers to entry, so if you or I wanted to create our own car company, it wouldn't be feasible.
THAT is why monopolies (in the traditional sense) are allowed to exist (and are even promoted) in a capitalist-lite economy.
In a true capitalist system, a monopoly would only be allowed to exist if it continued to provide a value to its consumers. And even that isn't enough to stop something bigger and better from coming along. Cheers.
That makes sense alot of sense! Thank you, fren!