[net.politics] the economics of oligopolies - response to Tim Sevener

lvc@cbscc.UUCP (Larry Cipriani) (12/08/84)

Our economics teacher Tim Sevener disregards two things:

  1) The oligopolistic structure of the market came about in a climate of
     regulation -- primarily because of that regulation.  Exxon is not a
     phenomenon of laissez-faire capitalism.

  2) Even setting point 1 aside, government action produces inefficiencies of
     its own.  Most (albeit not all) advocates of intervention ignore this
     ought-to-be-obvious fact.  It should be no suprise to you that attempts
     by mainstream economists to estimate the costs of these inefficiencies
     INVARIABLY place the costs as not-less-than roughly equal to the costs of
     the inefficiencies which would obtain from unregulated oligopoly.

Larry Cipriani	(posting for an economist friend)
cbscc!cbsch!lvc