Richard Wolff on 3 Mistakes of Thinking the Problem is Monopolies, Not Capitalism

"To think of competition as some magical perfection is a silly abnegation of your own rational capability to evaluate something. It's sort of advertising thinking. By that I mean the advertiser tells you what's good about the product they've been told to advertise. They don't tell you what's bad about it. If you want to evaluate it, you don't talk to an advertiser because they only give you one side. The people who promote competition use advertising logic. We're not gonna do that here."

Prof. Wolff's latest book "UNDERSTANDING SOCIALISM"

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[theblackwheelbarrow]

This channel is such a treasure trove, I'm learning so much.

[MetalMew]

1st...Thanks Prof Wolff for your valuable insight, and assessment.

[peternyc]

Finally, a really valuable and useful take down of those who claim that rent seeking is the problem. It isn't, as Professor Wolff has shown us. Rent seeking is the symptom/effect of social ills. Competition is the cause.

[tlev]

There is no perfect system, no countries are remotely near to become an utopian. That is why we need to choose the least worst system and that is capitalism.
A system where it is famous for eliminating poverty. Ask China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, South Korea, ...
Of course we should worry about monopoly, as a capitalist and someone support the free market, I want perfect competition to benefit the consumers, but if you worry about capitalism produces only monopolies then the government is also a monopoly itself, under socialism, it has complete control all over everything, the biggest monopoly in the history of mankind and no one can do a thing about it because it is the government.

[mesimesi]

What about New York landlords? They own 2 to 50 apartments. Who can compete against him? Then it's usually their family, friends or the same tribe that owns building across nyc
How to break up that monopoly?

[kasomoru]

Them dealing with monopolies would be to not let us know they exist.

[John-lfxf]

THERE ARE ALWAYS BARRIERS OF ENTRY BECAUSE OF VARIABLE OPPORTUNITY COST TO DIFFERENT INDIVIDUALS.

A competitive market means their can’t be economically artificial inefficiencies that advantage one agent at the expense of others.

[devinfaux]

Competition by its very nature implies that there will be winners and losers. The monopoly is just the biggest winner.

[LaOriental]

Strategic ignorance is a tool. It runs the world.

[jean-pierredevent]

A minimum income and a maximum income.

[justifiably_stupid]

Who is allowed to compete against the government in ANY system? Capitalism is one of the only good alternatives to State enforced monopolies.

[Felddagryph]

While there are some obvious flaws in Wolff's thinking and math, both the basic information and the concepts he exposes people to are valuable, and while he is sometimes horribly wrong on something he is more often in the right.

[timeWaster]

Right because socialism is a big fat Monopoly and capitalism requites free markets ... free market deplore monopolies.

[frederik]

Comments for the money god, views for the professors throne!

[sulinash]

A great speaker indeed but not truth full the big reason monopolies exist is due to socialism, due to subsidies when a company lobbies the government for subsidies then its not capitalism anymore but a mixed economy if one company is payed by the government and the other isnt Then who is going to win. You stifle competition because they cannot fight the government the basic fact of capitalism is a free market Economy the only law is supply and demand. Capitalism is not this big controlling thing its just a system .

[cf]

Monopolies are useful. Just like capitalism.

[MonMalthias]

The problem is not monopoly in itself, but who controls that monopoly, and what the monopoly power is used to do.
In a capitalist monopoly with a view to profit maximisation, destroying all new competition ensures that profits are preserved. This is the problem of innovation slowing down in capitalist monopoly.
Capitalist monopoly power can also be used to extract rents, because you no longer have to produce things at a price equivalent to its labour and exchange value. You can drive up the price and since there is no-one else who can make the stuff you make, if it is a necessity to survive, then this monopoly power will be used to price that thing way above its "real" price.
The neoliberal wing rejoinder here is to say, let's break it up and increase competition. But the reason that the monopoly came about was because of market competition in the first place. A fully free market inevitably leads to concentration and monopoly as competitors are made insolvent by capitalism's "creative destruction."
The statist rejoinder is to say, let's make this private monopoly property of the state. If the state is a democracy, this then places a degree of control in the hands of the citizens. But this is a far from certain outcome. It would be a just as likely outcome that the nationalisation process keeps the same bosses, keeps the same problems, but just changes who the profits accrue to.

Finally, the democratic socialist rejoinder is to say, let's make this monopoly worker and citizen owned and controlled. This has never actually happened in macrocosm before, but there have been some microcosms that have come about like community owned infrastructure. The problem is that communities often do not have quite the tax base to be able to fully sustain big ticket infrastructure items by themselves, and so this model of ownership is also fragile and liable to outside pressure to devolve authority to the state or be privatised.

Things like factories that have both community benefits (jobs and tax base) but also community harms (like waste and pollution) also present a tension that is not so easily resolved.

Ultimately, the big question that liberals and conservatives have failed to address is not so much "why do monopolies keep cropping up" but "who controls this monopoly, and is this model of control answerable to the citizen?"

[clarestucki]

Competition is absolutely an "unmixed blessing" for the consumert, resulting in the creation of the highest standard of living in all of history. And it's a stupid lie to claim that "competition leads to, or creates, monopoly. Everybody understands the basic truth that competition DESTROYS monopoly, to the benefit of the consumer. How can this guy get away with claiming to be an Economist?