Many people on this site say that natural monopolies do not occur and can only exist due to government. How would you explain Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, and JP Morgan and Co? Didn't they have a monopoly status that was split by the state?
EconomistInTraining:You know, rather than merely asserting that with key words in italics you could actually try to argue in favour of this stance.
As I said (and thought was made quite clear with the huge, bold, underlined, hyperlinked letters), others have already "argued in favour of this stance" and I don't need to regurgitate when I can just link to it.
Thing is, the meaning of that statement is pretty damn clear, in fact it uses two very simple concepts that Austrians also use (marginal cost and market prices) both of which can theoretically be approximated.
I don't get it. You're suggest that as long as you're clear and use Austrian terminology, you're right?
And seriously, a little humility might be nice. If you're going to state the I'm certainly wrong, you might want to provide some actually evidence.
Again, I did. In big bold underlined hyperlinked text that takes up the width of the post.
But since you failed to do so (I'm guessing you didn't even check) I think I might just have to. So here's the man himself Ludwig von Mises:If a commodity is controlled by a single seller or a group of sellers, which act in concert and they decide to restrict their production of this commodity, not because they have better use for the resources, but solely for the reason that they face an inelastic demand and hope to receive higher proceedings from selling lower number of units than they would normally sell, then the price, at which the market will clear is called monopoly price. Monopoly price is higher than would a competitive price be. Ludwig von Mises:Monopoly prices are only prices at which it is more advantageous for the monopolist to restrict the total amount to be sold than to expand his sales to the limit which a competitive market would allow
Ludwig von Mises:If a commodity is controlled by a single seller or a group of sellers, which act in concert and they decide to restrict their production of this commodity, not because they have better use for the resources, but solely for the reason that they face an inelastic demand and hope to receive higher proceedings from selling lower number of units than they would normally sell, then the price, at which the market will clear is called monopoly price. Monopoly price is higher than would a competitive price be.
Ludwig von Mises:Monopoly prices are only prices at which it is more advantageous for the monopolist to restrict the total amount to be sold than to expand his sales to the limit which a competitive market would allow
1) You didn't say anything about how Mises (or anyone else, for that matter) defines "monopoly pricing". You said "monopoly power actually has a pretty precise definition in mainstream economics (and I think, although could be mistaken, that Mises adhered to this definition) as the ability to price over marginal cost." How these quotes do anything to support your initial claim, I have no idea.
2) It's interesting how you would berate me for "not bothering to check" when it's quite obvious you didn't even look at the link I provided.
Both of which are taken from page 359 of the 1996 edition of Human Action. And both of which are pretty much in accordance with neoclassical monopoly theory.
Again, you obviously didn't read the article.