What can/should be done about real monopolies or trusts of essential resources (say, water for example) in the ideal state?
Should the state take action to prevent such real monopolies and trusts (which necessarily undermine the free market)? Or is there private-sector recourse in such situations?
Obviously, if the employees of such a monopoly or trust recognize an injustice (such as extreme price gouging), they could choose to withold their labor (barring contractual obligation) until the situation is rectified (I hesitate to use the term "strike"). That's one possible safeguard against such a situation. But in a more hypothetical vein, what if a single individual possessed the only single source of water in a given area and that no water could be imported for some hypothetical reason? What would stop this individual from exercizing tyranny over the others by making various unreasonable demands?
Could we rely on people to ally against such a man and refuse, in turn, to offer any vital services or products to him in return until he changed his policy? Would this be a reliable counter?
Brady, you ask a lot of tough questions. My reply to your first three paragraphs was "I don't know." But when I read your last paragraph, I immediately thought of a similar situation in my neighborhood. Six families live on 5 and 10 acre lots behind where my house is in a subdivision. Of those six owners, while all have a special driveway easment, it would look silly if each had their own drive. Somehow they all always ended up using the same lane, a driveway owned by "Friendly Frank," I'll nickname him. Frank didn't care who used his driveway/private lane, and all of the neighbors took him up on his offer. Frank's drive is the common one they all use; the others never put in their own driveway to the road since 1978.
Last year Frank moved away. "Arrogant Al" (another nickname) now owns what once was Frank's property. Al is a power-hungry, demanding type, and already he tried to blackmail neighbors by dropping hints that if they resist him or his ideas in any way, he won't allow them to use his long private drive anymore. They'd be blocked in, without a way to get to the main road until they spent a lot of money to get their own driveways. And it would wreck the appearance of the entire sudivision if each of the other five homeowners suddenly turned their easements into private drives.
Human nature as it is, though, yes, they have begun to ally against the bully. "If he won't give us what we want, we won't give him anything we have that HE needs," is their motto. If Al is determined to make their lives difficult, after growing angrier by the day, they are twice as determined to break the will of Al, the bully, to make his life miserable.
This is the pattern I've observed repeatedly among people besides my neighbors through the years. Brady, my best guess is that the answer to your last question is, yes, I think we could rely on people to ally together against the tyrant and refuse him vital services until he resumed sharing again. Certain aspects about human nature never seem to change throughout history. People will be people. They will only tolerate a tyrant for so long before they regain their will, their spirit returns, then they start thinking collectively, "What goes around comes around." They'd probably stick together in the end to give the tyrant a taste of his own medicine.
So my answer to your last question is, yes, I think it's a reliable counter.
I'm gald to hear your story, Steve. Thanks for sharing. It is good to be reassured that such would be a reliable counter. However, I guess the next danger is, when people begin to "think collectively," as you put it. People might begin to think socialistically. But an attempt to avert this danger is the very danger itself. So I guess it cannot be avoided.
As for private tyrannies, I'd rather have a private individual with a monopoly on one particular thing than a State backed by force with a monopoly on ALL things.
Thanks again, Steve.
Re: "thinking collectively leads to thinking socialistically." I stand corrected. Excellent points, Brady. But my earlier comment just goes to show how easy it is for even a lover of liberty or an independent thinker to stumble occasionally or unintentionally into a puddle of socialistic mud...while trying to convince one's self it's all for the good cause of finding a solution to an existing problem.
The "thought traps" are everywhere out there, with potential tyrannies waiting to spring from around every corner.
Monopoly is something engendered by the state--who cretes barriers to entry (regulation, taxes, OSHA, etc.) Without a controlling state, which big players can use to raise the barriers to entry, monopoly won't exist for long.
404, this is, for the vast majority of cases, true. However, there are some hypothetical cases where property rights on things such as water sources, land, etc. can conceivably lead to real monopolies on those things. However, like I said, they're mostly hypothetical situations.
But you do make a good point as to how government protectionist policies have much to do with excessive corporate power today. Many of the abuses by corporations that socialists use to criticize capiatalism in general are results of State entanglements with business. In many cases, the free market gets blamed for shortcomings that are actually the result of government interference. And the obvious solution that is suggested is MORE government interference to correct these problems. But it is rarely noticed that the initial failures were caused by government involvement in the first place and that what is needed is LESS government involvement - not more. For the free market to work, it must be free indeed.
State Rights Vs. Monopoly by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo45.html
Jefferson Was Right
By: Dr. Michael P. Byron - 05/24/03
Most Americans don’t know it, but Thomas Jefferson, along with James Madison, worked assiduously to have an 11th Amendment included into our nation’s original Bill of Rights. This proposed Amendment would have prohibited “monopolies in commerce.”
Read the entire story here:
http://www.liberalslant.com/mpb052403.htm
Steve Stock,
Do you know of any other information about an 11th Amendment dealing with corporations? Interesting article!
The Railroad Barons Are Back - And This Time They'll Finish the Job
by Thom Hartmann
Excerpt:
As the father of the Constitution, President James Madison, wrote, "There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by... corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses." It's one of the reasons why the word "corporation" doesn't exist in the constitution - they were to be chartered only by states, so local people could keep a close eye on them… Early state laws (and, later, federal anti-trust laws) forbade corporations from owning other corporations, particularly in the media. In 1806, President Thomas Jefferson wrote, "Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost." He was so strongly opposed to corporations owning other corporations or gaining monopolies of the media that, when the Constitution was submitted for ratification, he and Madison proposed an 11th Amendment to the Constitution that would "ban commercial monopolies." The Convention shot it down as unnecessary because state laws against corporate monopolies already existed. But corporations grew…
Read the full story at: http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/000464.html
Also by the same author, Thomas Hartmann:
Now Corporations Claim The Right To Lie
Excerpt:
Jefferson and Madison proposed an 11th Amendment to the Constitution that would "ban monopolies in commerce," making it illegal for corporations to own other corporations, banning them from giving money to politicians or trying to influence elections in any way, restricting corporations to a single business purpose, limiting the lifetime of a corporation to something roughly similar to that of productive humans (20 to 40 years back then), and requiring that the first purpose for which all corporations were created be "to serve the public good."
The amendment didn't pass because many argued it was unnecessary: Virtually all states already had such laws on the books from the founding of this nation until the Age of the Robber Barons…
In the last year of the war, on November 21, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln looked back on the growing power of the war-enriched corporations, and wrote the following thoughtful letter to his friend Colonel William F. Elkins:
"We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end. It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood. The best blood of the flower of American youth has been freely offered upon our country's altar that the nation might live. It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country.
"As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."
Full story at: http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/Hartmann010903/hartmann010903.html
For other stories similar to the two above, run a www.google.com search with the words, “11th Amendment,” “corporations” or add “Hartmann” for this same author or “monopolies” if you wish to extend your search and want to read more on this topic.
So there I was in the courtroom. Jury selection. "This trial is a civil trial. A corporation is suing a corporation. Does anybody have trouble with the belief that a corporation is a person?" There were 58 people in that jury pool. Not one of them raised their hand. Except for me. I went OFF on that poor sweet judge.
If corporations are people, why aren't they paying taxes? In 1955, corporations paid 40% of American taxes. Now they only pay 7%. We the People get to pay almost all of them.
http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/