[PEN-L:9354] Re: Re: Re: Re: Capitalist waste

["ann li" <annzl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Rob,

I'm not sure who is promoting the idea that natural monopoly is gone in
telecom/telematics, but I would like to see something a bit more analytical
and quantitative on that score; I recall some journalists making that claim.
It still seems pretty solid in the teaching literature. Of course, those on
this list would hopefully be inclined to think otherwise. I hope to get
started on a line of similar critical research eventually. I like thinking
of such telecom markets as more chaotic and contradictory, combining GIS
(geographic information systems) efficiency in technological mapping with
CLS (critical legal studies) indeterminacy in regulatory structure. And for
those better skilled than I in the history of economic thought here, isn't
'natural monopoly' a form of totalizing discourse?

Also, I don't have a cite and this may be off-base, but aren't the people in
NZ making those (techno-determinist) efficiency claims for their telecom
market?

Ann


----- Original Message -----
From: Rob Schaap <rws@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 1999 5:04 AM
>Subject: [PEN-L:9352] Re: Re: Re: Capitalist waste


> Hi again,
>
> On the matter of telecommunications 'rationalisation', 'efficiency'
> et-bloody-c:
>
> We're always hearing that price drops are exclusively a function of
> competition (Oz only privatised its Telco and invited in all-level
> competition in 1996).  We're also told that technological developments are
> such that telecommunications is no longer a natural monopoly.  So
> technology is deployed to get rid of an 'anti-business' conventional
> wisdom, but is not entertained as an agent in dropping prices.  I find it
> much more compelling the other way around.  Oh, well.
>
> And does anyone know of any work on comparing the role of technology in
> price drops compared to the role of competition?
>
> Cheers,
> Rob.
>
>