"America isn’t supposed to allow moats, much less reward them. Our economic system, we claim, is founded on free and fair competition."
That's called a straw man. No one has ever said America "doesn't allow moats" and that there is "free and fair competition".
The whole point of business is, within the law, to build a moat that makes it impossible for a late-starting competitor to compete with you. Patents are moats. Immense capital is a moat. Brands are moats. Regulations are moats.
When Disney pulls its movies from Netflix to start its own streaming service, it's using its moat to block a competitor.
I bet almost every dollar you spend in your life goes to companies that legally try to stop you from spending money with their competitors. From your phone to your bank to your car to your airline.
The Fed is currently propping up the price of assets through $3 Trillion of asset buying. This isn't a free economy.
That quote is probably right out of a business school textbook.
Any Apple customer will tell you they "benefit" from spending all their computer and phone money with Apple. Apple trying to build a moat around their ecosystem doesn't preclude mutual benefit.
The vast majority of businesses are what I describe. The large economic profits are mostly rents accumulated by a small fraction of businesses, in a Pareto distribution. I argue we’d do fine with less of the rentiers.
I think most Apple customers will tell you that Apple products are too expensive.
Most 'moats' are not beneficial to the consumer. What's beneficial to the consumer is competition, and companies innovating, not building moats, to stay ahead of their competitors.
"America isn’t supposed to allow moats, much less reward them. Our economic system, we claim, is founded on free and fair competition."
That's called a straw man. No one has ever said America "doesn't allow moats" and that there is "free and fair competition".
The whole point of business is, within the law, to build a moat that makes it impossible for a late-starting competitor to compete with you. Patents are moats. Immense capital is a moat. Brands are moats. Regulations are moats.
When Disney pulls its movies from Netflix to start its own streaming service, it's using its moat to block a competitor.
I bet almost every dollar you spend in your life goes to companies that legally try to stop you from spending money with their competitors. From your phone to your bank to your car to your airline.
The Fed is currently propping up the price of assets through $3 Trillion of asset buying. This isn't a free economy.