Book by Jonathan Tepper and Denise Hearn
I highly recommend this book, even if I find the middle part repetitive and difficult to get through. I was also driven to anger a few times such that I had to avoid family. However this book is definitely worth the time and the arguments are worth understanding, even if you don’t agree.
I don’t intend to repeat the whole book, or even the main points. Again, I encourage you to read the book. I have other arguments that this book brought up. These are not nearly as well thought out or researched. More of an experiment of thought.
What is presented in the book is an idea that competition has disappeared from the American market for various reasons including manipulation of regulations, consolidation of competitors, and allowing single entities to be major share holders in all major market players in a given business.
But what is not addressed is if competition is inherently part of capitalism. We assume this will be the case when people are allowed to own things. Now for the fun. Capitalism favors those with capital. For ages we have assumed this means the opposite of communism because people can gain capital from hard work. But it also means that those with more capital can take over more. For the lower class the majority of that capital is used for pay for everyday items like food and rent. The middle class may get to invest a little more, assuming their job allows them to benefit from that work.
But those in the upper class can spend lavishly on food and home expenses with plenty left over to invest their capital in growing capital, which naturally means they have more capital to invest in growing capital. Thus the cycle continues until the wealthy have accumulated enough capital to own a supermajority. At this point they start to own more than businesses and resources but also government influence and people.
No really. There is a growing trend among the rich of requiring their employees to work 60hrs+ a week. They claim this work is part of the capitalism work-hard-to-get-ahead foundation. But requiring people to work hard and taking the gains is a core part of communism as well. Often in this type of situation a person can make decent money, but has no opportunity to spend it because all time is dedicated to the organization to which they have dedicated their lives. Early retirement is an option, it is a requirement. Their bodies are too worn with stress have a retirement. I have also noticed that in many of these situations there are sever consequences for when falling behind. Such as dismissal. (Ok I’m getting a little too specific here on a few specific people that I have hurt people I know personally.)
The point is that competition is not a built in part of capitalism. Only capital is. The competition part requires effort to ensure it stays. The invisible hand doesn’t do all that work alone. Enough capital can put handcuffs where they don’t belong. We should have learned this with cigarette cartels and railroad monopolies, but somehow the myth that the invisible hand will even things out is still pervasive because it is just too convenient to think that the problems will take care of themselves. People always like what they want to hear. When the rich say the invisible hand will keep them honest, we tend to believe the idea. It is a familiar idea that has been part of our culture for centuries, so how could it not be true? To find out why it is not, go read that book by Jonathan Tepper.
Tepper, Jonathan, and Denise Hearn. The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition. Wiley, 2018.
