Freedomain Radio

What if a corporation grows so large that it privately owns a monopoly on the natural resources of its industry so that there is no legal manner in which another or a new corporation can compete to equalize the market and fight the authority of the massive corporation for oppression and blackmailing with the threat of cessation of production of a necessary commodity? Does it not then become a totalitarian corporation against which there is no free market, non-agressive solution? Does not democratic socialist ownership of companies by th people and shareholders better address this issue? Maybe I missed something...I just like to play the devil's advocate to learn because I still have much to understand at this point in time. Thanks.

The solution I would pose would be innovation with in the freemarket. If take for example a firm has complete control over oil and raises the prices to astronomical levels that their consumer base can't afford then some entrepreneurial capitalist will see the great opportunity for profit in creating an alternative solution using all of the technology at his command. Another problem with this situation is that a firm's goal in the free market is to make a profit and the use of coercive force such as withhold of supply or extreme increases in price only hurt the firm's ability to profit. The only way for this situation to really happen would to have a coercive force that could prevent innovation within the free market , i.e. the state or though it is a bit of a stretch, that this resource has no substitutes and is direly need for life, which I am not exactly sure is a situation that has or can occur.

I have a problem with this line of reasoning.  Democratic socialist ownership of companies/resources can only be implemented as government ownership.  So to prevent the possible problem of a monopoly this would create a monopoly.  The monopoly would be more dangerous than any private monopoly because it would have the powers of government in addition to exclusive ownership of natural resources.


 

The financial hurdles required to own all of one natural resource make this situation practically impossible.  Natural resources are spread around the world to the extent that it would cost a fortune to buy them all up, leaving whatever company that attempted such a thing bankrupt.

What respurce is there which could be monopolized in such a fashion?

There is a business concept called 'vertical merchandising', in which a company will try to expand and control all aspects of a product's creation and distribution-- Pendleton Wool is a good example of this. They own sheep farms near their wool processing mills to better control fluctuations and quality in the wool supply.