Doesn't seem so to me. As far as I can tell, all real life monopolies or oligopolies only exist because of intervention by the police state. The canonical examples that come to mind would be Microsoft (only possible because of copyright, a monopoly granted by the police state) and Standard Oil (only possible because of mining concessions, a near monopoly granted by the police state).
Here in Germany, Deutsche Bahn (the rail operator) had a practical monopoly on long distance travel, all thanks to a special law granted by the police state. Said law has been repealed by the EU a few years ago (2009 or so), and the competition from long distance buses is fierce now.
Can you name any monopoly that ever existed and wasn't created by the police state effectively granting it?
(For this argument, it doesn't matter if these police state granted monopolies are a good thing in some sense. I don't think so, but the point is really that competition works unless it is artificially restricted.)
> other examples--Coke/Pepsi, IBM/Intel.
How does Coke/Pepsi even come close? I see quite a number of caffeinated sugary soft drinks on the market (all equally disgusting). IBM/Intel? Well, IBM had something resembling a monopoly in the mainframe era. I wasn't around back then, but most computers were probably sold to the police state. Intel has had a near monopoly on desktop computers for the past 25 years or so, but only because Microsoft DOS/Windows wouldn't run on anything else, so this is actually an extension of the Microsoft monopoly mentioned above.
I'm not sure about the cable companies. Theoretically, is anyone allowed to run a cable from A to B? If no, you can only ever have one cable provider in a given region, again, thanks to artificial rules made by the police state.
I'm genuinely curious about any examples of monopolies that developed in a free market.
Competition within the rail industry? I doubt it.
I'd be extraordinarily surprised if any other rail operator arises in Germany--the only way I can see this happening is if a larger rail operator from another country enters Germany. This is a pretty strong example of a monopoly.
> I see quite a number of caffeinated sugary soft drinks on the market (all equally disgusting).
Look at who bottles them. The vast majority are bottled by either Coca Cola or Pepsi.
There's been a surge of attempts at "craft" sodas lately, but most have had little success or been bought by one of the giants.
> I'm genuinely curious about any examples of monopolies that developed in a free market.
See above.
Not within the rail industry---ownership of the track network makes that impractical. I'm saying DB was protected from other modes of transportation, which ensured their monopoly. The service being sold is not rail transportation, it's transportation.
> The vast majority are bottled by either Coca Cola or Pepsi.
Looking from Germany, there are Vita-cola, Afri-cola, Fritz-kola. All independent from Coke or Pepsi, and that's only the colas I can think of. All sorts of lemonades serve the same market.
> See above
What?! Deutsche Bahn is a (near) monopoly precisely because of support from the police state, Coke/Pepsi is not a monopoly, not even close. Neither of these are examples of a monopoly that developed in a free market!
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair
Ah, so you're in the "reject science" camp. Gotcha.
It's additionally worth noting that a) there is not a consensus, and b) consensus is not part of the scientific method.
And no, the incentives of academic economists are not aligned with industry like is claimed. If that were true, the majority of academic economists would not be Keynesian welfare-state supporting democrats like they currently are in the US.
A natural monopoly only exists in the face of high barriers to entry. Those barriers may be natural, or they may be political, but either way they must be high. Some may be high enough to only have a few competitors, but compete they must do. Collusion is mathematically and empirically unstable. In fact, the economic criteria for cartel success is a) how much profits increase, and b) how long they last. There would be no need for `b` as a success criteria if they were stable.
This is because of government intervention (it's illegal for Christ's sake).
> Neither has wheat, sugar, electricity production, coal, iron, or copper.
Wheat has been regulated forever.
Sugar--are you not aware of the corn lobby?
Electricity production: this is pretty well monopolized regionally.
Coal: not yet.
Iron: USS wasn't a good enough a monopoly for you?
> A natural monopoly only exists in the face of high barriers to entry. Those barriers may be natural, or they may be political, but either way they must be high. Some may be high enough to only have a few competitors, but compete they must do. Collusion is mathematically and empirically unstable. In fact, the economic criteria for cartel success is a) how much profits increase, and b) how long they last. There would be no need for `b` as a success criteria if they were stable.
What makes you think that a large company will not create high barriers to entry in their field? When a company reaches a size where they can lobby the government successfully the field ceases to be an even playing field.
In the US, of course. There are plenty of places where it is legal, but no monopolies have formed. Even before it was illegal, there was no monopolization. If the timeframe for inevitable monopolization is on the order of millenia, like it has yet to do with Prostitution, well then consider me unimpressed by the argument.
> Wheat has been regulated forever.
Forever? I'm pretty sure wheat farming predates the existence of the idea of government regulation. And yet, no monopolies. Ever.
> Electricity production: this is pretty well monopolized regionally.
Distribution is pretty well monopolized (hey, what do you know...an industry with high barriers to entry!). Production, not even close.
> Sugar--are you not aware of the corn lobby?
You're still just talking about the special case of the US. Open your eyes.
> Iron: USS wasn't a good enough a monopoly for you?
US Steel wasn't even a monopoly in the US (it peaked at 67% of the US market)...nowhere close to a monopoly world wide.
> What makes you think that a large company will not create high barriers to entry in their field? When a company reaches a size where they can lobby the government successfully the field ceases to be an even playing field.
So what you're saying is that non-natural Monopolies are the end state of government intervention. I agree. Natural monopolies can exist due to or in spite of government intervention.
Yes, most of my examples aren't global, but that's largely a function of regulation: the US is the only country with permissive enough economic policy to allow spontaneous monopolies and a large enough economy to be worth creating a monopoly in.
As for historical monopolies on the order of millennia: the modern corporation hasn't existed for millennia and indeed societal, technological, and infrastructural advancement was necessary before we could reach a point where a large scale monopoly was possible. It's hard to run a monopoly by carrier pigeon.
>> What makes you think that a large company will not create high barriers to entry in their field? When a company reaches a size where they can lobby the government successfully the field ceases to be an even playing field.
> So what you're saying is that non-natural Monopolies are the end state of government intervention.
It's ironic that in your excitement when you thought you had caught me in a mistake, you simply missed my point and failed to respond to it.
Given your general tactics in this debate have been rude and childish, I'm not going to continue debating with you further, but here's a question for you to ponder: in your hypothetical unregulated corporate free market, what prevents large corporations from changing the market so that it's no longer a free market?
No I'm not. A monopoly by definition requires no competition, and monopolistic profits are not possible with competition. They could possibly occur with cartels in markets with high barriers to entry, but cartels are unstable because the markets benefit cartel-breaking behavior more than they benefit cartel behavior.
I find it absolutely rational of you to not want to discuss any further. It's the natural end state of stubborn ignorance. I've already demonstrated that not all markets end in monopoly, but only those with high barriers to entry. If any reader wants more examples, they can google the term Commodity.
Private competition almost always ends in monopoly or trust anyway.
Private competition isn't a stable state. When two companies are competing, both are trying their best to put the other out of business. It should be no surprise at all when that eventually happens.
Monopoly, on the other hand, is a stable state--it takes extraordinary circumstances, usually government intervention, to overturn a monopoly. Even if a small competitor manages to eat a chunk of a monopoly, the monopoly company can simply buy them out in most cases. Giant corporations can even become unassailable by government, as their wealth allows them to lobby for laws that favor them.
The alternative is for corporations to form a sort of truce, where they don't touch each other's slightly different markets, effectively granting each other a monopoly in each other's areas. The clearest example of this is cable companies not laying cable in each other's territory, but there are plenty of other examples--Coke/Pepsi, IBM/Intel. This is also a stable configuration which is more sophisticated than a monopoly. The benefit to corporations is that it reduces their risk--having to overturn competitors means taking the risk of overplaying your hand--but there's no real benefit to consumers.
So ultimately, I'm not sure it makes sense to say that monopolies are the problem and not privatization. Privatization ends in monopoly.