Bolton query re food distribution

James Devine jdevine at popmail.lmu.edu
Wed Aug 19 13:57:33 PDT 1998


Gregory Nowell writes:
>I also believe that the pricing/volume issue is key to
>the question of power in capitalist society generally,
>and will post separately on that.

I agree with his general analysis, but I would add that the transportation costs that he talks about create local monopoly power for some businesses. Along interstate 5 in the Central Valley of California, the gas stations that face no competition (at the same cloverleaf) clearly charge higher prices, though eventually the local monopoly becomes a local oligopoly as other gas stations move in.

More generally, however, I find railing against monopolies to be useless. Both monopoly and competition are part of the way almost all markets work. If markets weren't dynamic processes, the Robinson-Chamberlain model of monopolistic competition would be the most accurate.

Jim Devine jdevine at popmail.lmu.edu & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html



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