Monopoly is great for a consumer if it's created to help the consumer (in socialism/utopia/pipedream)
You know why it's a pipedream?
First off, because nobody can understand and anticipate the needs of all the consumers. This is known as the economic calculation problem. Secondly, let's assume you manage to find an omniscient person to do the dictating. Is there any guarantee he would be benevolent? Finally, let's assume you had a benevolent, all-knowing dictator to run things. He'd have to be immortal, too, because there's even less chance that his successor would be either all-knowing,
or benevolent.
You've given me a laundry list of potential problems with monopoly, none of them a fundamental flaw with monopoly itself. No one can predict how many people travel at the same time, this doesn't mean we need multiple towers & multiple teams of air traffic controllers to keep the planes from bumping into each other, does it?
You've shot yourself in the foot with this one.
There are multiple towers, and multiple teams of traffic controllers... at least one per airport, and most have separate teams for ground control, local air control, and the actual air traffic control. And each individual controller is responsible for a relatively small section of space. You can't expect one person to coordinate all the flights in the air at any one time.
Please. Let's not try to grasp at straws & technicalities, the meaning was clear: Two independent teams of air controllers, in competition rather than cooperation with one another.
You don't honestly believe that a monopoly is just one guy? Or that two corporate divisions, in a cooperative rather than competitive relationship, are anything but a monopoly?
As to your "efficiency":
No wasted money/energy for advertising
No redundant tooling costs for identical products
No redundant/identical products
Streamlined planning/transport/delivery
1.Unless you count propaganda. Monopolies have traditionally spent a great deal of energy and resources trying to convince people how awesome their shitty product is.
That's because they're not true monopolies. If you have cornered the market on food, why would you spend $$$ on PR?
to the alternative: Would you spend as much on PR as when you *didn't* own the market? Let's stop grasping at straws.
2/3. Good point. Making 100 left shoes, size 10, is much more efficient than making 50 pairs of assorted sizes.
So you're saying that the only thing society needs is 100 left shoes in size 10? Or that the monopoly is intrinsically run by idiots? (see my definition of socialist monopoly in one of the above posts, and if you have a problem with the definition, argue why it is faulty, but don't change the rules in mid-flight)
You're looking for problems intrinsic to monopolies, not problems often associated with monopolies. If i made a claim that monopolies, no matter how flawed, are the best thing since sliced bread, you'd have an argument. All i have claimed is that it is possible for monopolies to be beneficial to society, a much narrower claim. Don't make me defend statements i've never made.
