The Cinepro Family Loves Walmart

[_Darth J]

Droopy, tell me the substantive difference between these two sentences:

"They don't understand anything about economics."

"They don't understand anything about economics qua economics."

Tell me what information value is added to the second sentence by attaching the words "qua economics" after "economics."

[_Darth J]

It isn't the human at work here, it is the Corporation. The corporate structure is a machine designed to do one thing only. To make money, to compete, and corner the markets any way possible. Things like ethics, legality, morality, are just a nuisance. It is why corporations love moving to third world countries where governments are willing to be just as tyrannical as the corporate heads.

Well, what if Walmart was a limited liability company instead of a corporation? Would that be okay?

Costco is insanely profitable, and part of its business model specifically is related to how it treats its employees.

Costco is a corporation organized under Washington law. How is it possible for Costco Wholesale Corporation to do anything good? I though corporations were bad.

[_ludwigm]

... consumers and service providers should be left completely alone and the market should determine the winners/losers. To them that's just. That's God's perfect plan. Little do they know, this has never existed in US history. ...

+1


Sounds familiar...


My free association, sorry !

[_Kevin Graham]

You continue to be confused even when I explicitly explained it.

You asserted that I didn't "understand free market capitalism." And your evidence...? Oh, because property rights exist in a theoretical state of Lassiez-faire capitalism! WTF does that have to do with the point I was making about complete deregulation leading to monopolies? I never once spoke of property rights. You messed up obviously, failed to read my entire post, and now you're covering for it by pretending a reference to property rights somehow addresses what I said about government intervention in the markets.

Lassiez-faire capitalism does not involve literally no regulation, not because no system is purely capitalistic, but because a purely capitalistic system still would involve things like property rights.

So what? How does this change the fact that regulations are needed to prevent markets from monopolizing? And what do you mean by a "purely capitalistic system"? There are a number of systems that fall under the rubric of Capitalism. Which one of them, to your mind, is the one that is the most "pure"?

You are busy arguing with a strawman version of "right wingers" that don't really exist outside of hyperbolic rhetoric.

It isn't a straw man at all, and it isn't hyperbolic rhetoric. They actually believe this crap. Government should stay completely out of the markets, period. Their rhetoric of the Founding Fathers, their visions of early colonial America, pretty much tells me they're not bluffing in what they say they believe.

The desire for deregulation is the desire to remove specific kinds of impediments to exchange, not to return to a state of nature. What you seem to think of as "pure" capitalism isn't capitalism at all.

In reference to my remark about "pure" capitalism, I obviously spoke of how it is presented by Right Wingers on a regular basis. It isn't something I myself believe. It is what they believe. It is what they preach.

Both natural selection and capitalist trade involve discernible rules and contain moral actors, so bad analogy on both fronts?

Uh, no. The so-called "discernible rules" in Lassiez-faire capitalism amount to nothing more than a protection of property rights. Every other fathomable rule and regulation is prohibited. Again, no analogy is perfect, but I know you're smart enough to get the point. Without government enforcing rules and regulating commerce, monopolies are the natural result. You shouldn't need to retake a college course to understand this. You said it yourself, they are in it for the money. So where are the limits explained? If there are no limits, then monopoly is the goal.

This rock in my pocket is the only thing keeping tigers from mauling you right now. Better hope I don't lose my rock. It'd help if you provided some form of argument indicating this.

The difference being, there is no reason to believe your fingers would do such a thing. There is every reason to believe a corporation, given the absolute freedom to do what it was designed to do, would seek to monopolize. Talk about bad analogies. My argument is based on a simple understanding of what a corporation is. The fiduciary duties of those who make up the entity called a corporation. The legal obligation a corporation has to its shareholders, etc. I don't know why you're having such a difficult time grasping this.

My point actually was that's the only examples we are really aware of.

Maybe, maybe not. But current laws and regulations prohibit monopolies from forming. But you're telling me that a company enjoying 89% of the market share is going to be satisfied with that, and not continue to strive for 100%? Most people would probably consider 89% a monopoly anyway.

Anti-trust laws are rarely invoked, and when they are it is usually against companies that either 1) really weren't monopolies

Well it all depends on how you define a monopoly, really. How much of the market share does a company need to have before it is a monopoly? 50%? 70%? 90%? 100%? I'm not sure what the "legal" definition is, so maybe Darth can help us out with that.

The lack of constant need to invoke antitrust measures and the reality of broad-competition across a variety of market niches suggests that your law of monopolistic inevitability isn't correct and it certainly isn't being supported by anything other than a blind assertion that corporations are evil and would like to form monopolies if they could.

You're saying companies must not really try to capture 100% of the market because anti-trust laws aren't invoked enough... in your opinion? What a dumb argument.

I also argued that if a monopoly uses is monopoly power to bend the supply demand curve too far, that will naturally create space for competitors to enter the market and offer a superior product.

But superior products don't always win. Just look at how Microsoft, a turd of an operating system if there ever was one, wins against an infinitely superior OS like Unix and Linux. Now, was it the evil government that gave Microsoft its monopoly?

You don't seem to understand all the "sources of power" that help create monopolies. The only thing you've considered is the "deliberate" barrier, which is mentioned briefly at the tail end of that article. A barrier that involves the kinds of things you envision with companies using government to block the competition. And you act like I've ignored these things when I've already mentioned them several times in my critique of Walmart. But their ability to gain political influence from people on high is really just a biproduct of their enormous economic advantages. They have hi-powered lobbyists only because they can now afford them. Smaller competing businesses cannot.

So while I'm not denying the things you're talking about, I'm more focused on the economic barriers to competition which are far more common. In my view, a Mom and Pop start up business stands an ice-cube's chance in hell in competing with a monopoly (like Walmart?). Why? Because they simply do not have the resources to compete. It doesn't really matter how good their products and services are. Because of Walmart's size, it easily squashes the competition by using its economic advantages.

If the vertically and horizontally integrated Widgets R' Us Corp starts offering too bad of a product at too high of a price, eventually it will be beat by a nascent Widget competitor or, more likely, a Widget alternative. This exists as a natural check on monopolies getting too inefficient. You know, assuming they can't use the government to crush their competitors with fees and regulations.

A monopoly, once established, wouldn't need government help to keep the competition down. All they'd have to do really is charge "below cost" for their products until their so-called "competition" went under. But they can't do that now. Why? Because thanks to government, it is illegal.

Good thing lots of businesses are competing against one another to do that.

Well no crap. That's what I've been saying. But for some strange reason you seem to think a company's pursuit of profit comes with an unspoken limit. In your view, corporations generally don't want to own the market at all (becoming monopolies). And whenever they do, they only succeed by using government intervention. This is nonsense.

What we have learned from our economic history in America is that companies love to "merge" with one another. We may have had twenty smaller companies competing against one another in one market, but through time the number of serious players usually comes down to two or three. Just think of the thousands of retailers that have existed in our history, and now here we are, with companies like Costco and Sams, pretty much owning the Big Box industry. This graphic pretty much says everything about the myth of "choice" in America.

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/585370/original.jpg

I guess I missed that part in microecon.

I guess you did.

Costco is insanely profitable, and part of its business model specifically is related to how it treats its employees.

I didn't say Costco wasn't profitable. I said treating employees well isn't generally considered a wise business decision in terms of profitability, which is why Wall Street has been criticizing Costco. Of course, I believe treating employees well does pay dividends, but shareholders and the BoD of a corporation don't think in those terms. They think in terms of bottom dollar and minimal benefits for labor costs. Costco is an anomaly, and should serve as hard evidence that companies like Walmart would benefit by paying their employees more money.

Actually my argument was that resource fulfillment in capitalist economics comes from mutually reinforcing self-interest, which you didn't seem to grasp.

Of course I do. But it is irrelevant. Do you really think it is big news that product/service providers are in this for their own self-interests? Well no crap.

your idea that large businesses are run by amoral people who will harm employees and consumers as much as they can in pursuit of the most pennies possible is also mistaken

Uh, what planet are you on? It is our current reality. You don't understand the nature of a publicly traded corporation. When management is divorced from ownership, amoral business decisions is generally what we see. Morality has nothing to do with an company's decision to move to third world countries, otherwise they wouldn't do it. It doesn't matter how moral you think a CEO might be, the fact is he is beholden to the shareholders, and so his business decisions must reflect what's best for their interests, not his moral sensibilities. Costco's wild success has everything to do with its sales model, and a CEo enjoying these kinds of returns will naturally have more freedom to make risky business decisions that reflect his moral sensibilities, but he is not completely free and recent criticisms from Wall Street reflect that reality. It could very well be the case in the next five years that Costco take an unusual hit in share price, and the benevolent CEO gets fired for putting his morality before his fiduciary obligations.

the personal views of business leaders do have some influence on their operations.

Not so much with publicly owned companies. Have you actually seen these robots give public interviews? The CEO of NIKE explaining his justification for sweat shops, the Walmart CEO talking about how Walmart employees are happy, well compensated folks, etc etc? Morality is a nuisance for these folks. Their value to the corporation lies in their ability to lie and deceive. Of course the outrageous multi-million dollar "bonuses", are just rewards for being in the devil's service.

Company ethics are also restricted by consumer demand, but sometimes business leaders just have their own ideas about what is right and proper to do. I brought up Costco as one example, but is far from the only example

But these are by far the exceptions that fly in the face of the rule.

[_EAllusion]

It isn't a straw man at all, and it isn't hyperbolic rhetoric. They actually believe this s***. Government should stay completely out of the markets, period. Their rhetoric of the Founding Fathers, their visions of early colonial America, pretty much tells me they're not bluffing in what they say they believe.

I don't know how I can explain it more clearly. You are claiming, without a hint of irony, that right wingers in general are economically to the right of anarcho-capitalism, which is a position on the radical fringe of libertarianism, which itself is a smaller minority on the right. And yet this makes sense to you. You are confusing hyperbolic rhetoric for actual positions because that is more convenient for you to argue against. The end result is you attack a position that almost no one actually holds.

The difference being, there is no reason to believe your fingers would do such a thing. There is every reason to believe a corporation, given the absolute freedom to do what it was designed to do, would seek to monopolize.

Other corporations would have the same desire. It is not obvious nor inevitable that one particular company will win and monopolize the market. The motives of companies are much less important than their actual behavior. Welcome to capitalism.

Well it all depends on how you define a monopoly, really. How much of the market share does a company need to have before it is a monopoly? 50%? 70%? 90%? 100%? I'm not sure what the "legal" definition is, so maybe Darth can help us out with that.

Heh. Anti-trust law is complicated with cases depending greatly on the lawyers and judges involved and does not revolve simply around market share.

You're saying companies must not really try to capture 100% of the market because anti-trust laws aren't invoked enough... in your opinion? What a dumb argument.

I am saying that antitrust laws aren't invoked that often directly or as a preventative block, which argues against a rapid and invetiable move to monopoly in all economic sectors. Your argument seems to be that companies will want to monopolize, so they will. Given that this doesn't happen in reality, that argues against your thesis.

But superior products don't always win. Just look at how Microsoft, a turd of an operating system if there ever was one, wins against an infinitely superior OS like Unix and Linux. Now, was it the evil government that gave Microsoft its monopoly

Miicrosoft never had an OS monopoly. That they were found to have a monopoly has always been a bit of a joke. What it had was a substantial portion of market share that still existed in a tenuous sea of readily available alternatives. Linux is free. Free. To the extent it had a large market share, it only maintained it through offering a highly desired product - in this case centering around having a user friendly interface available on cheaper PC clones that eventually gained the advantage of familiarity to a user base. The tech sector is wonderful for demonstrating how substantial market share control can evaporate very quickly if a product becomes undesirable against its alternatives. What's the media monopoly that is AOL worth these days?

But their ability to gain political influence from people on high is really just a biproduct of their enormous economic advantages. They have hi-powered lobbyists only because they can now afford them. Smaller competing businesses cannot.

I'm opposed to government policy that allows companies to manipulate the government's powers and wealth into giving them a competitive advantage. Such a thing is anti-capitalist. No one is disputing that businesses will try to do this. That's an argument for limiting the government's powers so they cannot take part, isn't it?

A monopoly, once established, wouldn't need government help to keep the competition down. All they'd have to do really is charge "below cost" for their products until their so-called "competition" went under. But they can't do that now. Why? Because thanks to government, it is illegal.

Lol. If a monopoly maintains its status by outcompeting any potential challengers through offering superior efficiency in providing a desired product at a given price point, then what's bad about that monopoly? The point I was making was that if a monopoly uses its advantages too much, it will create space to be out-competed. The traditional view of why monopolies are bad is that they have the capacity to bend the supply demand curve past peak efficiency to an extent. I replied that this can only go so far because space gets created for competition. There is a natural market check for preventing the worst case scenario from going beyond a certain point. Your response is that a monopoly can prevent that by not using its advantages. Well, yeah, but then you've lost sight of why they are bad in the first place.

What we have learned from our economic history in America is that companies love to "merge" with one another. We may have had twenty smaller companies competing against one another in one market, but through time the number of serious players usually comes down to two or three.

If you are looking at American history, what usually see is an oligopolic control of the majority of market share in given sector by 3-6 large companies with many smaller competitors dividing up the rest. That holds true for everything from beer to newsmedia. What you also see is who the large companies are is constantly in flux, with major players falling down and small to mid-sized companies taking their place. Yep. One wonders how you think Costco got to its dominant position within a subsector of the retail market with the 800 pound gorilla that is Sears Roebuck in the way.

I guess you did.

Let me rephrase. That's not what is taught in basic microecon.

Uh, what planet are you on? It is our current reality. You don't understand the nature of a publicly traded corporation.

You really need to get down whether your problem is with an incorporated business, a large business, or a publicly owned business. You shift in-between the three depending on what is convenient to argue at the moment. They're quite distinct things.

[_Droopy]

I have to say, its fascinating to see a communist and a Mahr libertarian at each other's throats here, since Mahresque secularist libertarianism shares so much with the traditional Left outside the economic sphere. As both of these warring camps have, despite their strong differences on this issue, a common enemy - conservatism (and the LDS church/gospel), its interesting to watch them tumble to and fro over a specific narrow economic issue while, in other areas, they would march shoulder to shoulder against conservatism in all other cultural, social, and political areas.

That's doubtless why I'm not a straight, no chaser libertarian but a modern conservative: libertarianism per se isn't deep enough or broad enough to encompass the full range of the human condition that conservatism encompasses properly as a world view and life philosophy, and doesn't take the fundamental cultural/moral aspects of the human condition that are at the base of economic and all other forms of liberty into serious enough account (although some libertarians do, to be fair).

[_cinepro]

You asserted that I didn't "understand free market capitalism." And your evidence...? Oh, because property rights exist in a theoretical state of Lassiez-faire capitalism! WTF does that have to do with the point I was making about complete deregulation leading to monopolies? I never once spoke of property rights. You messed up obviously, failed to read my entire post, and now you're covering for it by pretending a reference to property rights somehow addresses what I said about government intervention in the markets.

Kevin, just so I'm clear, are you only afraid of monopolies being formed in private companies, or are you also concerned about industries in which the government enforces a monopoly?

And between the two (corporate monopolies and government monopolies), which do you think are more prevalent, and is this a good thing or bad thing?

[_EAllusion]

Bill Maher isn't a libertarian. He once flirted with labeling himself in that manner when he did not have much of a grasp of what libertarianism even is. That is not exactly a sound case for describing him in that manner. He doesn't currently call himself one and he doesn't look one, so why label him that way?

I'm a libertarian in the same sense a Milton Friedman or Nick Gillespie is. My views are in near total agreement with Gary Johnson, who happened to be the nominee for the libertarian party ticket last year. The "Maher" shot is just dumb and exceptionally uncreative trolling.

esn't take the fundamental cultural/moral aspects of the human condition that are at the base of economic and all other forms of liberty into serious enough account (although some libertarians do, to be fair).

You're a quasi-theocratic authoritarian who favors a powerful police state enforcing your religiously informed lifestyle preferences. You're more far afield of what libertarianism is than typical progressives. You certainly value liberty less.

[_Darth J]

You're a quasi-theocratic authoritarian who favors a powerful police state enforcing your religiously informed lifestyle preferences. You're more far afield of what libertarianism is than typical progressives. You certainly value liberty less.

But on the bright side, EAllusion, Droopy's plan will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost.

[_Brackite]

Who really gives a damn whether more people shop at Wal-Mart or not? Cinepro didn't start this Thread to be political. Life is too short to worry about where most people do their shopping. But is appears that shopping at Wal-Mart is considered a big sin from the Religion of the far left wing.