| Mr Khan said: vertical monopolies have gotten around that in the past, though we seem to have gotten past them, due in part to changes in the economy and in part to antitrust laws. 2 questions, actually. Are you in favor of antitrust laws, 1. and 2, yesterday you mentioned something about a currency system that doesn't require central bank intervention, which i would be curious to learn of, as everything from the advent of the gold standard on forward has had some sort of central force intervening. |
Thanks to the structure of the economy, yes, verticle monopolies are pretty much impossible... in fact, I doubt any corporation would even try it, the aim of the game, nowadays, is outsourcing as much as possible. The greater the division of labour, the lower the costs, the greater the profit.
Anti-trust laws? In the current way of doing things, I am in favour of them (though I fear that through lobbying, and the like, the laws are in danger of being bent to actually help anti-competitive behaviour. I haven't looked up any examples of this, but it doesn't seem unlikely). In "Sam's perfect world", however, I think if a monopolistic entity started price gouging, or something, the barriers to entry would be so small, that just about anybody could get involved in the business. Thus giving the large players an incentive to play fairly - if they don't, they're in danger of being out-competed.
As for your second question... that's quite a long debate, to which I don't pretend to have a complete understand of.
Here's how I'd imagine it'd work, though, I'm guessing this is going to have some flaws. Like I said, I'm no expert. I'm sure there's plenty of stuff on mises.org regarding the matter:
You, as a saver, would be able to deposit anything into a bank: gold, silver, historic artifacts, even other bank notes, whatever. It'd be up to the bank as to what they'd accept, and what they don't, it would also be up to bank how much they value this stuff at. The bank, based on what you've deposited, would say that you account is worth X amount of "dollars" (I'm just using that for the sake of ease). The bank will mint its own dollars. People then use the bank's dollars in their everyday business, going out and buying goods.
If a bank starts handing out too many dollars compared to what it has in its chambers, ie, it becomes over-leveraged, people who hold on to the notes will no longer be able to withdraw the actual goods from the bank. News of this would spread fast, and there would be a run on the bank, causing the bank to collapse. This will be an incredibly strong incentive to ensure that no runaway printing will ever come about.
Overtime, I imagine that most of the currencies would die down, and the banks would start using a couple of "standard" currencies (I just think the market would favour this). Again, however, if any foul play starts, a new currency would quickly emerge.
This is effectively how the currency worked in the USA up until the civil war. There are some difference. There were some regulations, but this was done at the state level, not the federal. The Federal Government also set certain values. It said that a "dollar" was x amount of silver, there was also an "eagle" that was x amount of gold. Banks, when valuing your deposits, used these standards. I'd prefer a market-set valuation, rather than the fixed set. You also had the first and second national banks... which caused more troubles than they solved.
