Opinion of unions

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Conceptually, massive FO. Range from massive FO to moderate HO in practice. I'll always full-throatedly support the concept and principle.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Conceptually, massive FO. Range from massive FO to moderate HO in practice. I'll always full-throatedly support the concept and principle.

"ultra-leftism", "ultra-left idealism"

Eh? I thought I was kind of hedging my approbation in that post--more than I hedge it in my interior thoughts on the subject, which are pretty much exclusively pro-union.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Generally not a fan of cartels in any industry, labor being no exception.

So you're totally on board with antitrust legislation, right? Or is that too much of an infringement on the sacred right of property?

the libertarian argument, if i remember correctly, is that government created these cartels in the first place and that by withdrawing corporate welfare and letting the market have its way, there would be no oligopolies or cartels left.

i disagree, because capitalism is a naturally centralizing force with or without the hand of government. you only have to look at the comptuer market to see how rapidly a handful of companies can swallow up a vast area of business.

And my have computer prices skyrocketed as a result!

It's almost as if something about the nature of computers sold changes over the years.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Generally not a fan of cartels in any industry, labor being no exception.

So you're totally on board with antitrust legislation, right? Or is that too much of an infringement on the sacred right of property?

the libertarian argument, if i remember correctly, is that government created these cartels in the first place and that by withdrawing corporate welfare and letting the market have its way, there would be no oligopolies or cartels left.

i disagree, because capitalism is a naturally centralizing force with or without the hand of government. you only have to look at the comptuer market to see how rapidly a handful of companies can swallow up a vast area of business.

And my have computer prices skyrocketed as a result!

It's almost as if something about the nature of computers sold changes over the years.

You just proved my point. If natural "monopolies" raise prices and stifle innovation, shouldn't the computer market have been as stagnant as the Post Office or the DMV?

Well, no, I'm not sure that that follows, unless you start with a set of assumptions that I find distinctly, uh, odd. A valiant effort, though!

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Generally not a fan of cartels in any industry, labor being no exception.

So you're totally on board with antitrust legislation, right? Or is that too much of an infringement on the sacred right of property?

the libertarian argument, if i remember correctly, is that government created these cartels in the first place and that by withdrawing corporate welfare and letting the market have its way, there would be no oligopolies or cartels left.

i disagree, because capitalism is a naturally centralizing force with or without the hand of government. you only have to look at the comptuer market to see how rapidly a handful of companies can swallow up a vast area of business.

And my have computer prices skyrocketed as a result!

It's almost as if something about the nature of computers sold changes over the years.

You just proved my point. If natural "monopolies" raise prices and stifle innovation, shouldn't the computer market have been as stagnant as the Post Office or the DMV?

Well, no, I'm not sure that that follows, unless you start with a set of assumptions that I find distinctly, uh, odd. A valiant effort, though!

Which assumptions do you disagree with?

The idea that the computer industry can be compared with the Postal Service strikes me as chimerical, since what the Postal Service does is by nature fairly what-you-see-is-what-you-get (not that there's nothing about it that could possibly develop or change, obviously). It's not at all clear that the trajectory computer development would be taking wouldn't be more 'innovative', however we as a society are quantifying that, if there were more and smaller computer companies. Those are the two main ones.

I'm not even especially committed to the idea that having a few big tech companies is a bad thing on this particular level, although do I think it's bad for entirely different reasons. It's just that I didn't think your initial counterargument, or rather example for a counterargument, was very good, since we don't to the best of my knowledge have a model for what the computer industry might counterfactually have turned into were the market share more dispersed, and then I didn't think the comparisons to the Postal Service and the DMV were particularly apropos.

I do note that you haven't denied that there's a certain level of cartelization going on in this sector of the economy. That being the case, out of curiosity, is it something that you oppose?