zlacker

Governments are checked by the democratic process. And competition is not working as well as it should. There are plenty of corporate monopolies, Varsity being one of the most obvious at the present time.

>>n4r9+(OP)
Neither is perfect but we can easily see that private competition works better by far by comparing the results: all the modern life products and services vs the mess that governments and governmental services are in various parts of the world.

>>nickpp+r31
The question is not which is more efficient, but which is more responsible with power.

>>n4r9+u61
Governments have incomparably more power and thus their abuses are incomparably worse: famines, pogroms, wars, asset confiscation, incarceration, murder.

Companies are controlled by the market, it's governments we need to worry about and find ways to control and regulate.

>>nickpp+x81
Still, the question is not which currently have more power, but which is more responsible with that power in a democratic society.

Companies are remarkably good at finding ways to control the market. That's why antitrust legislation is needed to protect consumers.

>>n4r9+ch1
The only unbeatable way companies control the market is through government-granted monopoly. Any other way is eventually defeated by the market itself.

Every government intervention in the market will benefit established players and will hinder startups and thus the markets's self-regulating mechanisms.

>>nickpp+Zm1
This is an extreme counterexample, but doesn't the fact that the government will prosecute large companies that order hit squads to assassinate startup employees count as an "intervention"?

There are many other cases where I'd be very uncomfortable trusting these so-called "self-regulatinf mechanisms", e.g. the abolition of slavery, child labour, and racial/sexual employment discrimination.

>>n4r9+Pd3
All that is illegal behavior. Markets require the rule of law too and nobody is disputing the role of governments to implement and uphold the law.

>>nickpp+yb4
Price fixing is also illegal behaviour, but my impression is that you're more relaxed about that?

>>nickpp+yb4
Moreover, none of those things were always illegal. There was a time where it was not obvious that they should be illegal. Yet, despite the relatively laisez faire economics of the 19th century (in the UK at least), these behaviours were not simply self-regulated away. That required government intervention in the form of passing laws and ensuring that the law was followed.