[ExI] Under the libertarian yoke

[Damien Sullivan]

On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 04:30:56PM -0700, Samantha Atkins wrote:
> On May 7, 2008, at 6:36 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

> > So how would you prevent a cartel of companies, or for that matter an
> > oligarchy of companies that own everything and have an army of paid
> > enforcers, not unlike the House of Saud?
> 
> How would this cartel of companies manage to keep all would be  
> competitors from underselling them if they had no state power  
> (legalized force) backing them up?  If they are truly charging more  

I forget if the context was minarchy or anarchy; if the latter, they use
their army of paid enforcers, "legalized" force being a moot point.

Of course sometimes economies of scale form a natural barrier to entry,
as with Alcoa, or network economies.  Oil isn't aluminum refining, but I
imagine exploratory drilling and pipeline construction have largish
mininum capital requirements.

-xx- Damien X-)