# What would happen to industries left to the free market? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 21, 2015, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-industries-left-to-the-free-market/713267 "2015-02-21T17:11:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-industries-left-to-the-free-market/713267/21 "2015-02-22T03:04:37Z")
> [@Mrdeals](#): > > Lets say no. > > Just the normal taxes and audits that go along with being a company. Then, of course, you’re eliminating all enviromental regulations. Oil companies are free to get oil out of the ground any way they can, farmers don’t have to waste money to follow pesticide regulations, energy companies can go back to the good old days of belching smokestacks. Let’s not forget that the communications industry is subsidied by government allocation of frequencies, so without regulation, if my local ABC station decides to buy up all the other TV stations and turn them off, then I’m going to have to learn to like ABC. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-industries-left-to-the-free-market/713267/22 "2015-02-22T03:23:54Z")
It’s really impossible to say. Colleges might get more expensive. Or they might stay the same or even get cheaper as without all the government loans and subsidies, demand will be reduced. But poor people would still have a hard time paying for it. Road construction is a tough one as the main purchaser of roads are Federal, state and local governments. General construction would produce more shoddy work without building codes. Oil and energy distribution would tend to form natural monopolies, like the cable company. But producers would largely be a commodity business selling gigawatts to the grid. The main thing with a lot of industries like banking is that left to the free market, they tend to oscillate wildly like a driverless truck careening down the highway using the guardrails to keep it going in the right direction. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-industries-left-to-the-free-market/713267/23 "2015-02-22T06:08:44Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Not necessarily. Consider software. Some may barely remember it, but 15 years ago the government was attempting to break up Microsoft Corporation because Microsoft supposedly had an unstoppable monopoly on the market for operating systems. But the government lost, and Microsoft was allowed to carry on. > > Today we barely even hear about Microsoft. Other companies like Apple and Google clobbered Microsoft, not by antitrust cases, but rather by creating better products. That’s what happens in a free market. If you hardly hear about Microsoft it is because you must be skipping the business pages and trade publications. And of course they are shrinking away to nothing > [@](#): > > Microsoft has published its Q4 2014 earnings report, and the company has made $4.6 billion in net income on $23.38 billion in revenue. Revenue has increased compared to $19.9 billion from the same period last year, and net income decreased only slightly compared to last year’s $4.97 billion. Yup, almost nothing. Not to mention the damage done through decades of piss-poor security in Windows. They are finally getting it together. If you’ve ever actually read about the antitrust case, you’ll know it was valid. That Bush and buddies killed it does not invalidate the facts. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-industries-left-to-the-free-market/713267/24 "2015-02-22T06:21:08Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Not necessarily. Consider software. Some may barely remember it, but 15 years ago the government was attempting to break up Microsoft Corporation because Microsoft supposedly had an unstoppable monopoly on the market for operating systems. But the government lost, and Microsoft was allowed to carry on. > > Today we barely even hear about Microsoft. Other companies like Apple and Google clobbered Microsoft, not by antitrust cases, but rather by creating better products. That’s what happens in a free market. Microsoft got left behind elsewhere, but they still have 90% PC market share. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-industries-left-to-the-free-market/713267/25 "2015-02-22T07:59:01Z")
> [@Mrdeals](#): > > Lets say no. > > Just the normal taxes and audits that go along with being a company. I mean regulated in terms of their behaviours; I.e what they can and cannot dump in rivers; what risks they can expose their employees to, etc. Are those things unregulated? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-industries-left-to-the-free-market/713267/26 "2015-02-22T11:43:17Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I don’t know what would happen with health care. I would hope in a truly free market (with transparent pricing and genuine competition, which doesn’t exist in our system) then there would be a drop in prices. I’ve heard there is a medical establishment built (or being built) in the Caribbean that does open heart surgery for $2000. Stuff like that would be great. > > Then again, it would probably just be a drop in consumer protections as the more likely outcome. There might be a drop in prices, but people who couldn’t afford health care would be out of luck. And for some highly specialized or rare procedures, prices may increase. The fundamental problem with free markets is that while it is the most efficient method of meeting peoples needs and wants, it does not guarantee that everyone’s needs are met. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-industries-left-to-the-free-market/713267/27 "2015-02-22T14:30:10Z")
> [@Mrdeals](#): > > I just read the biography of Andrew Carnegie, and was somewhat surprised to learn almost all railroads were built by private companies, seems to have turned out fine. Why is that surprising? Aren’t all railroads still private companies? AFAIK, the “government” doesn’t build roads and bridges and railroads. They just pay for it. Construction companies do the actual work. ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2015, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-industries-left-to-the-free-market/713267/28 "2015-02-22T14:50:50Z")
I am not an economist. According to what I have seen (a recent example is Microsoft discussed above), businesses will slip into a cycle of sharp competition and then monopoly. Once the monopoly phase is reached, the monopoly uses it’s power to keep down competition-which never (I believe) works forever. They get lazy/stupid, new technology happens, small insignificant competitors break into the field, something happens to keep the cycle going. Extreme cycles are bad for everyone except the few people who personally get rich. Hence the desire for Government to do something to restrain the businesses and smooth out the cycles. Which peels off the highs (no one likes that) as well as avoiding the lows (most people like that). ---
**Author:** ![JcWoman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jcwoman/32/2889_2.png) [@JcWoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JcWoman)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2015, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-industries-left-to-the-free-market/713267/29 "2015-02-23T15:06:29Z")
I have another angle on this topic: no regulation of an industry allows it to focus more on profit to greed levels and not worry about ethics or “should we operate this way” questions. Look at how manufacturing industries are so happy to dump their waste into nearby rivers or the air before regulation and then only implement waste treatment when forced to by regulation. Or how meat processing plants force higher and higher numbers of animals into the slaughter house, disregarding animal welfare issues. Sure they’re going to be killed, but it’s better to do that in a way that generates as little terror for the animals as possible. But also speaking from a public safety angle, free market pressures allow the workers to process sick animals into our meat supply in order to meet their processing quotas. With enforced regulation, sick animals are instead processed for things like pet foods or cosmetic raw materials, glue and gelatin, etc. Here’s another example in an animal industry of which I’m very familiar with after more than 5 years as an adoption volunteer/board member: dog racing. In the early days of the U.S. dog racing “industry” the dogs were a commodity. They were bred intensely, not well treated, and disposed of by the hundreds of thousands/year. Thanks to regulation and “hate” groups they have changed their ways and now breed carefully, take pride in and care very well for the dogs, and hand over most unwanted dogs to adoption organizations to become pets. (I have two.) I am now volunteering for an organization that rescues dogs used for racing and hunting in Spain and that situation is exactly where the U.S. dog racing industry was 30 years ago and even worse in many respects. They don’t believe in spay/neuter so the dogs breed like bunnies. They believe that starved dogs hunt better so they don’t feed them. They dispose of them by the hundreds of thousands/year. I’ve heard many people ponder why the hunters don’t take pride in the “tools of their trade” and take proper care of them. The answer is that even a carpenter won’t waste time cleaning his hammer if there is a constant supply of 50 more where the first one came from - that is by allowing the dogs to breed freely they are disposable commodities. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2015, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-industries-left-to-the-free-market/713267/30 "2015-02-23T15:22:29Z")
> [@Mrdeals](#): > > I just read the biography of Andrew Carnegie, and was somewhat surprised to learn almost all railroads were built by private companies, seems to have turned out fine. Railroads got millions of acres of free land. Without that gift from the government, they would never have gotten off the ground. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2015, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-industries-left-to-the-free-market/713267/31 "2015-02-23T22:20:54Z")
“College” is an industry? Well, these online for profit colleges are. Look how great they are! Are we allowed to sue the bejesus out of companies? Will they be held financially responsible for the pollution/cancer/other problems they cause? Will they be forced to clean up oil spills out of their own pocket? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-happen-to-industries-left-to-the-free-market/713267.md?page=1)