On Fri, Jun 01, 2001 at 12:48:44AM -0400, Corvin Russell wrote:
Some law of economics? -- it's called monopoly power, and is the major problem with pure free market theory. Pure free markets tend to magnify initial inequalities, especially when there is information disparity and inefficiency (which there will always be; sometimes it
As the sharper reader will have noticed, a market in which there is inefficiency is not a "pure free market". However, let's say a very free market instead -- anyhow, pure markets are impossible, even theoretically, unless you make highly undesirable assumptions (which many economists do in fact make), like that all agents have the same choice function.
is legislated, as, e.g. "intellectual property" laws). The other part of the problem is just game theory -- it's to my advantage to use format X if everyone else is using it. When a monopoly uses its power to create initial disparities of advantage, game theory takes care of the rest.
-- Corvin Russell <corvinr@sympatico.ca>