We might also acknowledge that a pretty significant share of people do know that already and just shrug their shoulders to it, convinced that it's better to allow for that than do anything about it.
There's been a lot of work put into distilling "free market" into its most radical interpretation, and lots of people just aren't open to bringing much nuance or pragmatism to bear upon it any more. Many lessons learned painfully in late 19th and early 20th century have been forgotten and the counterweight and containment policies that they earned now tend to get ignored or dismantled.
And somehow instead of trying to make it better, there are never ending attempts to make it even worse somehow ( if some of the patents are to believed ). I honestly sometimes wonder if some of the stuff is not in place already only because public reaction if all those were plopped in place in one go.
Well, why don't the ethical non-predators open up shops in economically disadvantaged areas and offer non-predatory prices? The margins must be huge if they really are predators.
Good question, was on my mind too. The problem I could see is Walmart style - the predator will beat the prices of the non-predator down until the non-predator goes out of business, then raise their prices again.
They can do this because they are operating in other areas with predatory prices, giving them the ability to operate at a loss, and relying on the fact that at least some of those areas are not being challenged by non-predators.
Everybody seems to be playing the game right in this scenario. Interesting to try to come up with a good counter.
It really wasn't this bad in the past on a whole. There were plenty of bad actors, but EVERY actor wasn't bad.
Just look at food recipes American corporations feed to Americans, and their different recipes for Europe that look more like the American recipes circa the 1990s. Everything in America is optimised to the max permissible bad action.
Yeah. Why do I have to pay a plumber to install gas appliances? It's just a protectionist racket.
Point is, it's easy to screech "predation" or whatever but the problem is that every one of these things has some justification that can be used in the abstract.
It does legitimately cost more to run a store like Dollar General than Walmart so the same can of beans has to cost more on their shelf for the same margin.
How much more, how much is justified? I don't know.
swatcoder|2 months ago
There's been a lot of work put into distilling "free market" into its most radical interpretation, and lots of people just aren't open to bringing much nuance or pragmatism to bear upon it any more. Many lessons learned painfully in late 19th and early 20th century have been forgotten and the counterweight and containment policies that they earned now tend to get ignored or dismantled.
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2|2 months ago
IncreasePosts|2 months ago
conrs|2 months ago
They can do this because they are operating in other areas with predatory prices, giving them the ability to operate at a loss, and relying on the fact that at least some of those areas are not being challenged by non-predators.
Everybody seems to be playing the game right in this scenario. Interesting to try to come up with a good counter.
smallmancontrov|2 months ago
Hobbes arguments can rationalize any Nash Equilibrium.
c-linkage|2 months ago
_DeadFred_|2 months ago
Just look at food recipes American corporations feed to Americans, and their different recipes for Europe that look more like the American recipes circa the 1990s. Everything in America is optimised to the max permissible bad action.
screenoridesagb|2 months ago
[deleted]
potato3732842|2 months ago
Point is, it's easy to screech "predation" or whatever but the problem is that every one of these things has some justification that can be used in the abstract.
It does legitimately cost more to run a store like Dollar General than Walmart so the same can of beans has to cost more on their shelf for the same margin.
How much more, how much is justified? I don't know.
paultopia|2 months ago