I came across this interesting reddit thread today where people were discussing capitalism and billionaire monopolies passionately in response to Google's investment in India's Jio. Capitalism would never have been a problem today if the Adam Smith's version was followed instead of the inefficient crony version. People blame capitalism today for existence of inequality as if they both had a direct and causal relationship.
And yet, these are the same people who participated in the very focused consumerism which helped create monopolies like Oracle, Google, Coca Cola, Dominos, etc. in the first place. Not one of them paused for a moment and thought about spending that money on the fellow neighbor Joe's pizza hut instead of Dominos, not one of them thought about getting their hosting from neighbor Joe's internet shop instead of Amazon AWS, did they?
We ever keep blaming these business empires for all the inequality in the world today but who helped create these empires? Look into the mirror for a second and you might get the answer to that question. We keep indulging in all kinds of online activism be it related to social or economic issues, but why do we keep avoiding the biggest elephant in the room which is:
Entry barriers that help create monopolies
Monopolies are created because of entry barriers which restrict competition, as simple as that. There wouldn't be a billionaire Bezos today if some force weren't contributing in keeping the average Joe's ecommerce shop out of the mainstream. Now ask yourself what are those factors and market barriers, are you a part of those factors? What is keeping you from ordering your stuff from the average Joe's shop instead of Amazon or Walmart? I know the answer to the entry barrier question can't be that simple but it will give you some food for thought.
There are other factors too like government regulations and protections, copyrights and patents, etc. that give rise to monopolies but honestly, how many times have you really seen anyone complain about those even on social media? All we do is activism about superficial issues and keep saying things like "I hate Bezos" while this real elephant in the room escapes unscathed without even getting anyone's attention.
Information barriers help perpetuate monopolies
Information barriers play as much of a role in perpetuating monopolies as entry barriers. Adam Smith's version of capitalism was the true capitalism where perfect competition prevailed by the virtue of zero entry barriers and perfect transfer of knowledge or information. Today, thanks to Internet we live in a world where information can travel freely at light speed at the command of our finger tips, our predecessors like Adam Smith or Keynes could have only dreamed of this possibility! And yet, we struggle to keep up with the pricing information (which creates market imperfection which is a real barrier and contributor in creation of monopolies/oligopolies).
Are we using the Internet and information technology positively, responsibly and in a manner which is helpful to the economic prosperity of everyone? Or are we just indulging in mindless activism which no doubt creates a lot of noise but has zero contribution in tackling this biggest elephant in the room? Think about this for a while and you might realize what should be the right thing to do.
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