Competition

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FionaK
view post Posted on 9/1/2013, 18:02 by: FionaK




www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20943739

One of the things that most people agree with is that use of market dominance to prevent others competing is a bad thing.

The OP referred to the fact that much of what looks like an open market is in fact a sham: very few companies hide their dominance through the purchase or invention of different brands. We do not have time to research all of this and so it works.

The linked article discusses another aspect of this process: while the purchase of small brands by big multinationals is familiar it seems there is another turn of the wheel. Tesco is opening a chain of coffee shops which appears to be an independent business but is not. There is nothing particularly wrong about this if we accept the earlier process of buying up successful independents, and at one level objection may seem irrational at this stage. Nonetheless I think there is reason to dislike this development. Two reasons, actually.

First, an independent provides a different experience and a different service. By the time it is bought over it has established an expectation of what will be provided, and that may prove to be robust. At least it has the potential for resisting homgenisation, and that can only be good.

Second, I was interested in this from the article

QUOTE
Banks are reluctant to lend money to start-ups unless they are already making a profit, so if you want to expand your business, getting into bed with a multinational is often the only game in town.

So what are banks supposed to be doing for us, again?

The big supermarkets are already going into banking directly; they are taking over all kinds of businesses from coffee shops to garden centres. While they say they have never hidden this it is not exactly trumpeted, either. Do you know who owns the brands you buy; the shops you frequent? If you happen to have a reason to wish to boycott a company (if they are using slave labour, or not paying tax, or doing something else you find repugnant) do you know how to go about it? Can you in fact achieve it? Remember what keeps these people in check is consumer power, and you are to believe that is an adequate substitute for democratic control.

I fail to see any reason why the ultimate owners should not be the most prominent name on the packaging and the most obvious part of the name. That at least might help, because they are not going to stop deceiving you. As the article notes

QUOTE
Large global brands realise there is a generic dislike of super brands, so they often like to appear smaller than they are to avoid negative publicity,

Why would there be negative publicity if they were not doing anything wrong? Why should they undermine your "consumer power" to respond to wrong doing in this way?
 
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