When Marxists claim that Capitalism always tends towards monopoly, are they simply misreading specialization?

Question

The Marxists are right in the sense that ultimately there will be one producer or one small handful of producers of X but that X becomes ever narrower - - - - ultimately Coke or Pepsi will win or at least the two combined will maintain their extremely high market share - - - - in the market for COLA. NOT in the market for soft drinks, for cold drinks, for drinks.

Nobody NEEDS Cola. There are several SUBSTITUTES for Cola. Cola must compete with those substitutes for your beverage dollar. All of that means that Coke and Pepsi can't just charge "whatever they want" for their products.

Blue Ridge, ah, Progress' monopoly was created by the states in which it operates. It was not created by the market.

Steve of the 20 so-called "trusts" that "controlled" commodities production in the US prior to the Sherman Act, 19 of them had reduced prices of those commodities faster than the real price reductions of commodities in general over the prior three decades.

Cory you're wrong - microsoft still must compete with substitutes and with other tech companies - there's not a lot of capital investment required to start a software firm. And with respect to oil are you joking? Oil production and distribution is one of the most fragmented industries there is.

Nick the government didn't step in and create Red Bull now, did it????

Stiggo how many car companies sell cars in the US?

Answer 1

Marxism always tends toward a tyranny where the Government has the monopoly over just about everything.

Answer 2

Whoever can market the best will win.

Some Americans are becoming narrow minded as to what opinions are acceptable along with not tolerating contrary beliefs.

No one likes disagreements and unfortunately those that dare to think different are labeled trouble makers.

Marxisms have their flaws as does capitalism. The USA is not 100
% Ccapitalist.

In Capitalism is like what Darwin said 'The strong will survive'

Monopolies were supposed to have ended in the 1980s when Ma Bell which was AT&T was broken into separate companies for more competition and a trend to huge to smaller corporations was to have started. It is no longer the case since corporations are becoming bigger and multi-national and the laws help big corporations over small ones.

People have forgotten that Alexander Hamilton was against slavery in the USA in the 1700s.

Answer 3

Every time a WalMart opens up and drives away the local businesses, Marx is proved correct. How many airlines are there today as compared to thirty years ago? How many American manufacturers of jets do these two or three airlines get their planes from? (1 Boeing). Coke and Pepsi have a monopoly over basically all na beverages including bottled water, sports drinks etc. Start reading the small print on the labels.

Answer 4

Capitalism doesn't lead to monopolies, in general. Rather, some businesses are said to be 'natural monopolies.' That is, it is so beneficial to standardize on one provider, for efficiency, that competition cannot be sustained. Classic examples are gas, power, water, and telephone systems - where building a competing network would be very inefficient. However, those classic examples were also made into monopolies through regulation, so they're not as clear-cut as they might seem.

Microsoft can also be used as a possible example of a 'natural' monopoly - standardizing on one operating system offers much greater efficiency, perhaps even compared to the benefits of competition among operating systems. But, there still /are/ competing operating systems (and, in some industries, Microsoft does not have the dominant OS), so it remains only a potential example of a natural monopoly.

Oligopolies are often pointed at as evidence of a tendency towards monopoly. The problem with that is that oligopolies stick around for a very long time without becoming monopolies. Rather than showing a universeal tendency towards consolidation, they illustrate that some industries have high barriers to entry (natural, like high capital costs; or artificial, through legislation) that prevent there from being many players.

Answer 5

Look at the computer market -- Microsoft is an effective monopoly, because nobody can seriously compete -- and every year Microsoft makes themselves more incompatible with everyone else, to ensure that result.

Look at the oil industry -- while there are a few companies rather than just one -- they have arranged things to shut out all other alternatives for car fuel sources. It's functionally impossible for any new source to compete because of the massive overhead required to move in that direction.

Capitalism is no better than any other economic model -- it just has different advantages and disadvantages. And it's just as susceptible to force and control as any other area.

Answer 6

Well a lot of people believe that Capitalism leads to harmful monopoly. Although not all monopolies are harmful. But, observe what is evil here: the act of using the government to outlaw ones competition. It does not matter whether the government uses its power to outlaw competition to "protect" a single business, or to benefit a group of one hundred companies from a single superior competitor. Whenever the government outlaws an individual from entering and competing in any given industry it is evil and wrong. Seriously, look at Walmart. If you build a Walmart in a community which is dominated by small businesses, most likely a large number of those small business will go out of business.

Answer 7

1) Rupert Murdoch. No one person should have that much control over media. It's wholly UN-American.

2) My local phone company is Verizon. I have NO choice. There is NO option. I HATE them.

3) My local power company is Progress Energy. I have NO choice. There is NO option. I HATE them.

Monopoly is alive and well in America.
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EDIT: "Not created by the market?" Oh, well, then, that makes all the difference in the world. NOT!
The monopoly exists in THIS country, does it not? Isn't that the point of your post?

If there were REALLY such a thing as "capitalism" in this country, Americans would have a choice in all things. Competition in ALL things. NOT be forced to BUY stuff ONLY because it was the ONLY option.

Answer 8

Technically, pure capitalism with no governmental intervention does lead to monopoly--eventually one producer of a particular product (or service provider) will eliminate all its competitors.
However, monopoly lead to stagnation and poor product quality--the monopoly doesn't have to improve its product or invest in innovations because they are the only supplier.
This will eventually lead to competition again--enough people get frustrated with the pathetic product supplied by the monopoly and new companies offering innovative products will form.

Answer 9

Unrestrained capitalism leads to all sorts of ills.
It is the deregulation that leads to the slippery slopes.
As with individual citizens - businesses must be constrained by laws...else the competition that drives Capitalism is destroyed. Why cry for businesses that are so successful that they wind up in accidental monopolies?

Look how many articles have been written in Business
magazines about how Sarbanes-Oxley observance is costing business too much! And so soon after Enron...

Answer 10

Fine, you conveniently choose a product that has many alternatives. How many car manufacturers are there in the United States? Everyone wants cars, shouldn't new companies form every so often? How about airplane manufacturers? Copy machines? When you look at products without alternatives, you see that there are only a handful of manufacturers dominating the marketplace.

On the other hand, who cares what Marxists think? Luckily, they're a dying breed.

Answer 11

Coke owns a number of beverage products. Not everybody likes coca cola, but they might still buy their Powerade products for example.

And you don't have to be a marxist to see unrestricted, unregulated, big fish eat small fish capitalism, does indeed eventually lead to monopolization.