Burnes wrote:
>BTW: For 100 points name the three types of monopolies that can exist?
>Why can only one of them exist without govenment support? Why can
>only one of them exist temporarily?
Well, let's see if I can get this right, keeping in mind that
even though I'm a college graduate, I've never had an "Economics"
class--I guess if you are getting a degree in Fine Art, it's not
something you really want to know. Given that I've never had the
classes, what I call these monopolies may not be the "real" name, so
I'll describe them:
The "Natural" Monopoly exists where the market is too small
to need or support many players. I can't think of a good example off
the top of my head, but it would be a case where a *small* number of
specialized widgets, or a small number of complex and highly
specialized machines are necessary. This type of monopoly isn't
usually a concern to the average joe, or the politicians--it falls
below their radar--This is the one that can exist without government
support.
The "Utility" Monopoly--this is for Utilities like
Electrical, Telephone, water, and gas. There used to be the thinking
that this was a "natural" monopoly, but times and the market have
shown different. It was thought, or at least argued that because the
cost of the infrastructure was so high, that it was necessary to
grant monopoly status to the organizations (AT&T, Electric Companies
etc) in order to get them widely deployed. This may in fact be the
case--that to get AT&T to serve rural Wyoming, you have to grant them
the right to overcharge elsewhere.
The "Emerging Market" Monopoly--this is a monopoly that
exists when a company or individual first creates a market with a new
product. For example where I to create a "teleporter", and start
selling the devices, or start providing a service based on these
devices, for a certain length of time I would have a monopoly, and
assuming that the goverment didn't intervene, my monopoly would only
last until someone else figured out how to do it, and started
competeing with me.
Do I at least get partial credit?
--
A quote from Petro's Archives: **********************************************
If the courts started interpreting the Second Amendment the way they interpret
the First, we'd have a right to bear nuclear arms by now.--Ann Coulter
