Re: My Dinner With Marc Andreessen

On Sat, 6 Jul 2024, Scott Dorsey wrote:

D  <nospam@example.net> wrote:

They are. One sentence says that free markets become oligopolies (which is
not true) while the other says that government regulated markets (non-free
markets) become oligopolies.

>
But they BOTH can become oligopolies.

I give you this, _for a time_ but the free market is a dynamic, changing system, as technology progresses, new products, services and replacement parts will arrive and be developed and old monopolies and oligopolies will fall.
At worst, you'll end up with an equilibrium, where you might have a few 100s or 1000s of companies and where prices are quite static and balanced by the supply and demand.
The consumer only benefits from this. The classic marxist idea of one company rising to the top and forcing everyone to live at starvation levels due to high prices, is impossible.

Either free markets create them, or non-free markets. If both create them,
this discussion is meaningless. Needless to say, I do not believe so, but
if someone does believe it, I see no point in continuing talking.

>
The natural state of the system is oligopoly.  A government can resist this,
or it can accelerate it.   This is why a government controlled by an informed
electorate is so important.
--scott

Except that the logical failure here is that the government is a monopoly. So since humans act on the free market and in governments, any corruption or negative effects that supposedly happens on free markets, will happen within the government as well. That is why so often, governments just keep on growing. The only way to counter that, is collapse of a government or severe system shock.
If we reverse the logic, if governments, as monopolies, are benevolent and kind, so are the same humans acting on behalf of monopoly companies.
As for the natural state of the system in a free market, it is not oligopoly. It is a diverse set of millions and millions of companies. One company governing all of earth would collapse the same way as big governments (and I'm thinking world government) collapses due to inefficient organization.
The free market is self organizing and decentralised, and that is the natural state of it, without government creating and helping the behemoths we have today.