From: John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Sat Jun 09 2001 - 22:55:56 MDT
free markets
Smigrodzki, Rafal Wrote:
>I As soon as one (or a small number) of participants gains some advantage (by hard work or by luck), it improves it's ability do survive >and grow - it can weather downturns better, spend more money on research,
It seems to me you're making a case for monopolies not against them, growth is good, so is hard work, and so is research.
> kill or buy the competitors.
Governments kill, companies don't.
>It can become a monopoly and without a bigger bully to keep it in check, hardly anything can stop it.
That's not what history shows. Look at the corporate giants of 25 years ago. A&P was by far the largest retailer on planet earth, today I think they still exist someplace but I wouldn't swear to it. Where is Eastern Airlines or Pan American or Control Data or RCA or Studebaker or Packard? It sounds ridiculous now, but just a few years ago many said that IBM should be prevented from entering the PC market because it would completely dominate it, they said the same thing about ATT. Many of the giants of today like Microsoft, Amgen, MCI, Sprint, Oracle, Wal-Mart, Intel, Compaq, Dell, Sun and Cisco were tiny or non existent 25 years ago. On the other hand we have the same damn governments we had 25 years ago.
>Progressive - this would mean that almost all humans and most small businesses would be taxed mildly, while large entities with huge >annual transactions would be penalized, so that pure growth is size would be no longer so useful in dealing with competitors.
You'd be punishing cleverness. And how could a mom and pop company make a jetliner, or a 5 billion dollar state of the art semiconductor foundry?
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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