The question isn't whether they would like to raise prices, but whether they can.
You know the King in the Little Price? He ruled over the whole universe - provided he just made reasonable demands, like ordering the sun to rise at dawn.
Likewise, some monopolies are only kept as long as the monopolist doesn't actually abuse it, because as soon as they do, it starts to make sense for competitors to open up.
Then the question becomes: if Walmart raised its prices so much, why didn't one of the other large chains move in to the same area?
Personally, I started asking anonbanker about it because I find most claims of long-term abuse of monopolies won without State help (Standard Oil being the typical example) to be flimsy at best, so I'm interested in finding good cases. Usually either the monopoly doesn't last very long or it's actually not being abused.
You know the King in the Little Price? He ruled over the whole universe - provided he just made reasonable demands, like ordering the sun to rise at dawn.
Likewise, some monopolies are only kept as long as the monopolist doesn't actually abuse it, because as soon as they do, it starts to make sense for competitors to open up.
Then the question becomes: if Walmart raised its prices so much, why didn't one of the other large chains move in to the same area?
Personally, I started asking anonbanker about it because I find most claims of long-term abuse of monopolies won without State help (Standard Oil being the typical example) to be flimsy at best, so I'm interested in finding good cases. Usually either the monopoly doesn't last very long or it's actually not being abused.