Warren: “Concentration threatens our markets, threatens our economy, and threatens our democracy.”

[Ted King]

Speedy wrote:
Sen. Warren has little power outside of the bully pulpit. That could change if the Senate goes Democratic but even then, she has little seniority.

It's probably a matter of tradition that only Democratic Senators with a fair amount of seniority are considered for Minority/Majority Leader, but I think that technically Warren could, though, be selected for (hopefully) Majority Leader. I think that if she could push Chuck Schumer (uhg) out of the succession for Harry Reid's job and then actually become Majority Leader that would be exceptionally good for the country and the party.

Unfortunately, most likely, too many Democrats in the Senate are too cozy with Wall Street to actually have the sense to elect Warren to be Majority Leader. Maybe one big concession Sanders could work out behind the scenes to give his full buy-in to Clinton's campaign is to get a majority of Senate Democrats to say they would vote for Warren as Majority Leader. That's a real long shot, though, so Warren as VP may be the place she could have the most influence (if Clinton offered it to her and if she wanted it).

[Onamuji]

silvarios wrote:
Likely not wrong. I think consumer choice is important. Having said that, it's still not inherently illegal to have a monopoly in most businesses. It depends on the specific market actions of any given company.

Natural monopolies are the only ones that should be tolerated in the long-term, and even those only to the extent that they do not abuse their monopoly powers.

What we have now that so cripples the economy and denies 99% of the population a fair shake are regulatory (state-created or sanctioned) monopolies that are so entwined with every facet of our lives that they can't be broken short of massive paradigm shifts and accompanying overhauls of the law the likes of which have not been seen for a long long time.

It should never have gotten this deep into the doo doo. And now we seem stuck in it.

[samintx]

"concentration"??? huh? I'm dumb don't understand. I understand competition but not concentration in connection with economy.

[Ted King]

samintx wrote:
"concentration"??? huh? I'm dumb don't understand. I understand competition but not concentration in connection with economy.

In this context, concentration is mostly about the supply side of capitalistic supply and demand markets. In the last Gilded Age, Standard Oil was able to concentrate control over the supply of oil to the market. A company that has 100% control over supply is a complete monopoly. An economic entity - corporate or corporeal - can gain such significant control over the supply of a good or service that though they may not have a complete monopoly, they have essentially a "chokehold" on the supply and can be considered to have what is effectively a monopoly. I don't think Standard Oil ever became a complete monopoly, but it certainly had enough chokehold on the market that it was effectively a monopoly.

Of course, the more an economic entity has control over the supply of a good or service, the less competition there is in the market to supply the good or service to those who are on the demand side of the equation. And, of course, less competition tends to lead to higher prices for the goods and services in the market. When supply side market power gets too concentrated, it hurts the overall productivity of the economy and tends to lead to greater income inequality - less competition means those that do have the supply can charge more and then more can go to the owners of capital as profit without hurting their position in the market.

There are some realms of economic activity where there may very well be more economic benefit from granting a monopoly or very high concentration of supply of a good or service than there is cost to society. Patents and some natural monopolies are a couple of examples. But even those need to be well regulated so they are not abused to the point where they noticeably hurt the economic activity of the society as a whole more than they benefit it.

[sekker]

Ted King wrote:
[quote=samintx]
"concentration"??? huh? I'm dumb don't understand. I understand competition but not concentration in connection with economy.

In this context, concentration is mostly about the supply side of capitalistic supply and demand markets. In the last Gilded Age, Standard Oil was able to concentrate control over the supply of oil to the market. A company that has 100% control over supply is a complete monopoly. An economic entity - corporate or corporeal - can gain such significant control over the supply of a good or service that though they may not have a complete monopoly, they have essentially a "chokehold" on the supply and can be considered to have what is effectively a monopoly. I don't think Standard Oil ever became a complete monopoly, but it certainly had enough chokehold on the market that it was effectively a monopoly.

Of course, the more an economic entity has control over the supply of a good or service, the less competition there is in the market to supply the good or service to those who are on the demand side of the equation. And, of course, less competition tends to lead to higher prices for the goods and services in the market. When supply side market power gets too concentrated, it hurts the overall productivity of the economy and tends to lead to greater income inequality - less competition means those that do have the supply can charge more and then more can go to the owners of capital as profit without hurting their position in the market.

There are some realms of economic activity where there may very well be more economic benefit from granting a monopoly or very high concentration of supply of a good or service than there is cost to society. Patents and some natural monopolies are a couple of examples. But even those need to be well regulated so they are not abused to the point where they noticeably hurt the economic activity of the society as a whole more than they benefit it.
Exactly. Senator Warren is a very smart cookie - I'm amazed she has the patience to try to make this kind of a complex political argument except that she's targeting Silicon Valley Intelligencia.