this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2023
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It's a fantasy though. An extremely competitive market would be nice, but in reality it would be a race to the bottom and those who started with more cash would win out, buy up or starve the competition and monopolise, giving them the extra space to be lazy and pass on profits to their shareholders, who dictate increased prices to increase their margins.
That's where you have to tax monopolies.
Monopolies will resist but it takes only some expropriations to motivate shareholders that they push for law-abiding behavior.
This doesn't stop anything though again. Unless you tax them out of business, they will still be a monopoly and will fix prices for their profit. Less profit is still profit.
If you tax them too high they will either seek recourse via illegally bribing politicians (or "lobbying") to have those taxes removed, or monopolise with legally distinct businesses where wealth is concentrated in the few regardless.
Right, they are a monopoly until there is competition. That's OK. You tax them higher until it becomes profitable for a competitor. That's not 'out of business', just high enough.
But you can also accept the monopoly if the offer is transparent and good enough.
The colluding is a problem. It is the problem. It's unavoidable. In every system there is corruption. This cannot be solved but has to be dealt with case by case.