Capitalism and Competition
It is ironic that the FTC video points to the shopping mall as evidence that its anti-trust laws are working, because the mall is going the way of the dinosaur—i.e., many malls are empty, as Amazon has basically killed the bricks and mortar retailers. With Amazon, the e-commerce giant, seeming to take over everything (or at least retail), it does seem at times like there is not much competition in some respects. What I find to be problematic is that Amazon can actually lose money on its retail end (it makes its money mainly through Amazon Web Services—i.e., by providing Internet to companies). With every transaction, Amazon is losing money—but because it is undercutting its competitors, its competitors are going out of business and Amazon gets their market share. As Amazon spreads into other sectors it does seem like it is becoming a trust—but it is still undercutting competitors, which means it is not dictating price in a way that makes shoppers angry—at least not yet.
I think there should be more competition in some sectors where there are obviously trusts—such as in health care, insurance, utilities, things like this. However, I also think that in other areas there is a lot of competition—such as in clothing, manufacturing, automobiles, and so on.
Does capitalist competition natural lead to concentration? I think it naturally leads...
By dominating and controlling the market and undercutting competitors to force them out, one company can have final say in pricing and organization and what is made available.
The competition bureau at the FTC probably is necessary to keep monopolies in check, as otherwise nothing will—the market would allow monopolies to develop because when there is enough power and wealth concentrated in one set of hands, a monopoly is going to be the natural outcome unless there is an opposing force in the market to prevent that from happening. Capitalism leads to domination because of the characteristics and qualities of human nature: the capitalist system simply allows for that aspect of human nature—the desire to control everything, to grow ever larger, and to dominate and crush the competition—to be possible.
I do not think, however, that the FTC does a very good job about breaking up monopolies. There are plenty of monopolies that exist that it does not even touch, and I think that part of this reason is that the FTC has its palms greased by the monopolies it ignores and goes after the ones that are not lobbying enough. This is my theory and suspect there is some truth to it, otherwise why are…
