In Absence of the Federal Trade Commission
In Michael Huemer’s book, The Problem of Political Authority he argues that the government does not hold legitimate authority and then proposes a form of anarcho capitalism, which he believes could eventually replace an existing democracy, specifically in the United States. I found the section concerning whether or not the government holds legitimate authority to be convincing. However, the second section of the essay directed at proposing how a system of anarcho capitalism could be put into action does not seem like a feasible alternative to government. Huemer does well to address how private security agencies and private arbitration firms could replace the current police and court systems, but does
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The Federal Trade Commission’s primary aim is keeping markets fair and competitive. On their website, they state their mission is to: “… enforce the rules of the competitive marketplace — the antitrust laws. These laws promote vigorous competition and protect consumers from anticompetitive mergers and business practices.”1 Competition keeps a market healthy and growing, its effect is what Adam Smith called ‘the invisible hand’, which sets the ‘natural price’ by allowing consumers to choose the product they want from the firm with the lowest price.2 If a company values its product above the natural price, consumers inevitably buy the product from a different company with a comparable product but lower price. If valued too low, the company will lose money. Therefore, a company must anticipate how much other companies will charge for a similar product to have competitive pricing. This turns into an application of game theory. This happens when two firms (or …show more content…
In anarcho capitalism, it is highly unlikely that there would be a market for a privatized FTC. For a private company to exist, they must have customers which pay them for some good or service. Consumers must first have some need unfulfilled, then the product can exist. Most people would not know that they want a private FTC until they saw the consequences of not having one, and by that time monopolies and collusion will already be running rampant in the marketplace. Once two giant companies merge to form a complete monopoly, (I am specifically thinking of Time Warner and Comcast) there is no real way to separate them again. Once monopolies form, there is no reason they would not merge to form a multi-market conglomerate . Once collusion is common, it is likely that every business will collude in some way. In Holland, when construction companies started colluding without repercussions from the government, it was almost impossible for a construction firm to make money without being a part of the “cartel” of business who collude. “Individual construction companies that tried to stop this practice by not attending these secret meetings soon learned that their orders greatly diminished and were, therefore, forced to continue their cooperation”4. Therefore not only will there be incentives for unethical business, there will be repercussions from not partaking. If this happened in every market, those involved would probably not consider
The main purpose of US antitrust laws is to safeguard competitive business strategies to ensure that consumers do not experience undeserving high prices and low-quality products. These laws aim to impose incentives for businesses that function to maintain an equal price/quality ratio. There are three US antitrust laws: the Sherman Act, the FTC Act, and the Clayton Act. This particular case involves the FTC Act. Federal Trade Commission Act.
William Humphrey was a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission whose term ended in 1938. President Franklin Roosevelt requested Humphrey’s resignation in 1933 to replace him with a commissioner whose views corresponded with the presidents. When Humphrey refused to resign, President Roosevelt fired him. The Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 only allowed the president to remove commissioners for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office. This case originated in the Court of Claims.
The Role of the Government Robber Barons and Transcendentalists were two prominent groups of people in the United States during the time period post Civil War. Transcendentalists are people who believe in the philosophy that our knowledge of reality comes from an analysis of our own thought processes, rather than from scientific evidence. People who make profit through corrupt or questionable means are considered Robber Barons. In the article Resistance to Civil Government, the author Henry David Thoreau wrote, “That government is best which governs least” (Thoreau). Both Transcendentalists and Robber Barons would agree with this quote.
How Effective is the Federal Trade Commission In the end of last month we saw FTC Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen speak at a panel titled Federal Online Data Security Regulation: Where Are We Going? in which she shed some light on the agency 's approach towards enforcing data security. She stated that while the Federal Trade Commision simply doesn 't have the time to investigate every reported breach it has a remarkable 70% closure rate in prosecuting data security cases.
I believe the government should break up monopolies. John D. Rockefeller and his monopoly of Standard Oil is the perfect example for why the government should break up monopolies. Rockefeller and his partners created secret deals with railroads and used intimidation to get other smaller oil companies to sell out to them. Also Standard Oil was the monopoly to create trusts which created problems for other small companies.
Throughout the annals of history, the advocation for a democratic government has been at the forefront of many prosperous, well known societies. From Ancient Greece, to countries that have based their prosperity on democracy, like the United States for instance, popular sovereignty has been the contributing factor that integrates the common man into the government in which they are encapsulated. In the context of the American Independence movement, the need for American people to rule by their own terms meant the difference between being the slaves of a tyrannical leader, or the people belonging to a free society. The recalcitrant Americans fought against the unruly British in order to gain this independence. The document that initially gave
Competition was at a maximum. Imagine this, there were about six electric light companies formed within just one year in New York City. When studies were made about 50 years after the rise of natural monopoly, it was found out that excessive competition can be destructive to the competing companies but it is beneficial to the consumers. As a result, one The Gas Light Company of Baltimore objected the government to continuously grant franchise rights to new competing companies. In order to make up for losses, some companies merged
After the conclusion of the French and Indian War, England attempted to increase control over its American colonies until the colonists began an armed rebellion at Lexington and Concord in 1775. John Adams, however, accurately points out that while Lexington and Concord serve as a beginning of military conflict between the colonists and their British rulers, the actual revolution took place during the previous decade. This view of the 1766 to 1775 colonial reaction to Great Britain’s reorganization of the empire is illustrated by James Otis’ essay, The Rights of the British Colonies, the Stamp Act Congress’ proposed resolutions and Benjamin Franklin’s testimony before the Parliament, and Patrick Henry’s speech to the House of Burgesses. These
While some Americans blame the government for it being undemocratic, the elected officials have provided us with evidence that America is undemocratic. An ideal democracy is how the government puts the people’s interest before the businesses interest. In Lindblom’s story “The Market as Prison”, it introduces a mechanism called the automatic punishing recoil mechanism (APRM). This provides businesses to have a privileged position in society.
Trusts and holding companies allowed the creation of unofficial monopolies by allowing their owners to control a vast network of ostensibly different and competing companies, through the trusts and
Market Structure - Oligopoly Oligopoly is a market structure whereby a few number of firms owns a lion’s share in the market. This market structure is similar to monopoly, except that instead of one firm, two or more firms have control in the market. In an oligopoly, there are no upper limits to the number of firms, but the number must be nadir enough that the operations of one firm remarkably influence and affects the others (Investopedia, 2003). The Walt Disney Company is categorized under an oligopoly market structure.
Thomas Paine essentially wrote Common Sense for the common man. Being a pamphlet, its structure and simplicity made reading easy for those who were literate. Its minimalism enabled citizens in the colonies to unite under one common cause — independence against Britain. He was inspired by both John Locke’s The Second Treatise of Government as well as Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s
A natural monopoly is defined as a single firm that offers a product or service (Study.com, 2015). This firm has very high fixed costs as a barrier to entry and derives most the benefits of economies of scale available to the whole industry (Study.com, 2015). Before 1984, long-distance phone service was only supplied by AT&T in the United States (FRASER, 2005). AT&T was holding the position as the only firm to supply long-distance phone services created the label of this service being a natural monopoly. The government has anti-trust laws in place to ensure these firms defined as natural monopolies cannot charge whatever they desire for the single point product or service as the public depends on these services (Study.com, 2015).
The pricing strategy or pricing policy is one of the most important managers make for a product as it affects the profitable outcome and competitiveness that a product may make. (Toni, 2017). A business can use a variety of pricing strategies when selling a product or service. The price can be set to maximize profitability for each unit sold or from the market overall. It can also be used to defend an existing market from new entrants, to increase market share within a market or to enter a new market by dropping the price or offering more benefits with the device such as packages.
6.1.2 Price Price is the value or amount that customer pays to buy a product. For instance, for our Star Lab ice cream shop, we need to consider the cost of production of our ice cream, price of our main competitor and our potential customers demographics in order to succeed this competitive market. (C. Breidert, 2007, p.9) 6.1.2.1 Pricing Strategy Pricing strategy that can be used by our company such as penetration pricing, cost-plus pricing, value based pricing and more. But we think that market penetration pricing is the best pricing strategy to be used by our business.