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Next message: john ernst: "[OPE-L:4062] Crying Wolf"
Next message: john ernst: "[OPE-L:4062] Crying Wolf"
Next message: john ernst: "[OPE-L:4062] Crying Wolf"
Next message: john ernst: "[OPE-L:4062] Crying Wolf"
Next message: john ernst: "[OPE-L:4062] Crying Wolf"
Next message: john ernst: "[OPE-L:4062] Crying Wolf"
Next message: john ernst: "[OPE-L:4062] Crying Wolf"
Next message: john ernst: "[OPE-L:4062] Crying Wolf"
Next message: john ernst: "[OPE-L:4062] Crying Wolf"
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Previous message: Gerald Levy: "[OPE-L:4060] the railway of capital"
Gerald Levy wrote:
> How are we to explain
> technical change in branches of production which are dominated by just a
> few firms (often with a high degree of product differentiation among the
> firms) that have some degree of monopoly-like powers, e.g. oligopolies?
Schumpeter noted that they have advantages on the R&D end, like AT&T.
Yes, they will resist change, but sometimes the potential savings are so
great that they lead to change.
>
> 4) Monopolies, as such, are normally created through state intervention,
> e.g. by giving an exclusive franchise to a firm. Oops ... we haven't
> gotten to the Book on the State, have we?
Not exactly. In German and in the U.S., cartels were common. Yes, in
Germany, the state gave the cartel the power to enforce its agreeements,
but you can't have any kind of capitalism without a strong state to
enforce contracts.
>
> 6) If the railways in some cases avoided investment for technical change,
> there were other capitalists during the same time period like Andrew
> Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick [boo! hiss! jeer!] in the steel and coke
> industries who behaved more like Moses and the Prophets by re-investing
> virtually all of their profit into purchasing more advanced means of
> production rather than paying out dividends to stockholders. This vision
> of capitalist competition personified by Carnegie and Frick may no
> longer be the norm within most branches of production in capitalist
> economies. Once capitalists are no longer compelled by the same force of
> competition to revolutionize means of production, what then determines
> the pace of technical change?
I discussed this in my End of Economics. Carnegies shenanigans were
unusual. Morgan felt that he had to buy out Carnegie in order to put a
stop to his investment policy. At one point, C. tore down an unfinished
plant to build a still more modern model.
>
> In solidarity, Jerry
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail michael@ecst.csuchico.edu