Private Coercion
A corporation which successfully engages in coercion to the extent that it eliminates the possibility of competition, operates a coercive monopoly. A firm may use illegal or non-economic methods, such as extortion, to achieve and retain a coercive monopoly position. A company which has become the sole supplier of a commodity through non-coercive means (such as by simply outcompeting all other firms), may theoretically then go on to become a coercive monopoly if it maintains its position by engaging in coercive "barriers to entry." The most famous historical examples of this type of coercive monopoly began in 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution went into effect. This period, called Prohibition, presented lucrative opportunities for organized crime to take over the importation ("bootlegging"), manufacture, and distribution of alcoholic beverages. Al Capone, one of the most famous bootleggers of them all, built his criminal empire largely on profits from illegal alcohol, and effectively used coercion (including murder) to impose barriers to entry to his competitors. However, it may be relevant to take into account the fact that government was intervening in the alcohol industry by making manufacture and sales illegal and arresting those in the business, thereby enabling unnaturally high profits, and was not providing the usual service of enforcing trade contracts; likewise, some corrupt public officials derived rent-like profit from bribes that ensured that Capone would receive preferential treatment against potential competitors.
Read more about this topic: Coercive Monopoly
Famous quotes containing the words private and/or coercion:
“[In government] the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the otherthat the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights.”
—James Madison (17511836)
“In child rearing it would unquestionably be easier if a child were to do something because we say so. The authoritarian method does expedite things, but it does not produce independent functioning. If a child has not mastered the underlying principles of human interactions and merely conforms out of coercion or conditioning, he has no tools to use, no resources to apply in the next situation that confronts him.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)