NationStates Jolt Archive

Proposed by Shesharlie:

RECOGNIZING the need for free and fair competition in the world economy

BELIEVING that there needs to be a set of laws protecting the virtues of free and fair competition on the world stage

The UN:

1.Prohibit agreements or practices that restrict free trading and competition between business entities. This includes in particular the repression of cartels.
2.Ban abusive behavior by a firm dominating a market, or anti-competitive practices that tend to lead to such a dominant position. Practices controlled in this way may include predatory pricing, tying, price gouging, refusal to deal and many others.
3.Supervise the mergers and acquisitions of large corporations, including some joint ventures. Transactions that are considered to threaten the competitive process can be prohibited altogether, or approved subject to "remedies" such as an obligation to divest part of the merged business or to offer licenses or access to facilities to enable other businesses to continue competing.
4.Establish the International Bureau of Business Regulations (IBBR) as the primary supervising committee to enforce these and any other international business laws already passed.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
OOC: I whipped this one up rather quickly. Feel free to make comments and suggestions as to what you would like to see changed. Thanks.

This type of controls never work, they usually cost the people they are trying to help more money.

Evidence: The classic break up of Mum-telephone. Service charge were low and service was great. Since the break up, the service charges are high and now service is down and now it cost for that service, which was free before.

I am unfamiliar with Mum-telephone. But from your brief description, it may seem that the telephone industry Mum once dominated is still trying to recover. Once the industry recovers (the telephone service industry would be rather slow due to its nature, its demand, supply, etc) everything will be fine. I am sure of this because I am an Economics Major.

I am sure of this because I am an Economics Major.

I'm also an Econ major, and I owned shares in ATT in 1984 when Judge Green broke them up. The theories they taught us in class didn't play out that way in the real world. Some of the pieces did well, others did poorly, and I can't say that the telecommunications industry is currently better for it.

Economic theory is just that, a series of theories. For every one that promises A to solve B, there's another one out there that denies A, denounces B and promises C as the cure for everything. Just 'cause you read it in class don't make it true.

Aren't we pretty much mandating Capitalism with this? I'll let you answer.

Onward: I wasn't alive for Ma Bell, but I think recovery will come when every company merges again. We've got Verizon, Qwest, and AT&T left now, notwithstanding smaller companies out there. The market is slowly returning to it's previous form, where it did indeed work better.

I'm also an Econ major, and I owned shares in ATT in 1984 when Judge Green broke them up. The theories they taught us in class didn't play out that way in the real world. Some of the pieces did well, others did poorly, and I can't say that the telecommunications industry is currently better for it.
Isn't one of the issues with that break-up the same as applies to the break-up (or privatisation to be strictly accurate) of British Rail? In both cases, the resulting smaller companies still weren't in competition with anything, least of all each other, since they were entirely geographically divided. All that the break-up did was remove the centralised managing body (a mixed blessing -- some improved decision-making at local levels, many economies of scale lost), and increase the overall industry costs by adding many more directors.

Disclaimer: I am not an economist, nor do I play one on TV.

I am not in favour of the resolution, although well written, because each UN nation should be able to determine their own type of economy. While some nations see competition is a great idea, some may not favour it (for example, job and pension security).

However, I agree that people, ordinary people, should have a chance to participate in the world market without fear of big corporations wanting to takeover their business.

OOC: Wouldn't this be illegal?


IC:

RECOGNIZING the need for free and fair competition in the world economy


There's your problem right from the start. We recognise no such thing.


Christophe Boco,
Ambassador to the United Nations,
Ariddian Isles

First off- Id just like to say that sitting in my microeconomic class got me thinking and I wondered if it would be a worth-while resolution...kind of a "lets see how this will go..." test.

But I do have to argue one point, Ariddia:

If there is no current UN legislation against Antitrust laws, then how could it be illegal? And I see your thesis rather incoherent as you do not explain any further as to why you do not recognize it. Therefore, I will not recognize your opinion.

Also, to address some other points made- maybe there could be a way to deal with simply international economics. That way, certain countries could still hold their own economic values true within their own nation, but then between nations, these antitrust laws would have to apply.

I'm going to step out of character for a minute here, and I'll probably piss a lot of people off by doing it. Remember Rockefeller's Standard Oil? You hear all the things about what an evil man he was, how horribly he treated his workers, and how nasty his monopoly was, but it isn't true. Rockefeller wasn't perfect, certainly, but he was a philanthropist and gave a lot of his money away. His workers received much higher wages than those in other oil companies, and oil prices were much lower from Standard Oil. Rockefeller would go in and buy up inefficient or shut-down refineries, revamp them, and re-open them with a tremendous increase in productivity. It was possible, too, to compete with Standard Oil; all one had to do was start up his own oil company. It might not be very easy, but the rewards would be worth it if he stuck with it.

My point with all this is that the Sherman Antitrust Act, which broke up Standard Oil, caused quite a mess: oil prices went way up because the smaller subsidiary companies couldn't do their job as well. Because of this, a lot of workers formerly employed by Standard Oil had to find another job because the new companies couldn't afford to keep them. Antitrust legislation makes a royal mess of whatever it touches; I don't see why the UN should touch it with a fifty-foot pole.

If you can think of any service or good that is monopolized on an international scale, that you could possibly allow competition for with this resolution, let me know.

We feel that any resolution that would seek to hurt international or domestic economics in our country, is a resolution that seeks to hurt our government. We feel that businesses should be left to their own devices and the government should only step in when the law is broken, and this resolution seeks to force us to do otherwise.

Whilst we are generally in favour of the concept driving this proposal, we have one major problem with its philosophical roots. It declares a need for "free and fair competition" for global economic health. We are yet to see any convincing arguments that free trade and fair trade are compatible, and are alarmed to note that article 1, while motivated by a healthy distrust of industrial lack of competition, also removes a great number of the potential control mechanisms that allow fair trade to take place in the name of freeing trade.

If there is no current UN legislation against Antitrust laws, then how could it be illegal?Duplication is not the only rule (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=420465) concerning UN Proposals. My guess is that Ariddia thinks it would constitute an ideological ban.

Duplication is not the only rule (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=420465) concerning UN Proposals. My guess is that Ariddia thinks it would constitute an ideological ban.

OOC: Yup. It certainly looks that way to me, but of course that's up to the mods' interpretation.

And I see your thesis rather incoherent as you do not explain any further as to why you do not recognize it. Therefore, I will not recognize your opinion.


IC: How nice for you, Ambassador. But the world doesn't work that way. If people don't agree with the premise of your proposal, they're simply not going to vote for it.

My government's position is that other priorities supersede "free competition" by a long way. Our economic system -both nationally and internationally, through the International Fair Trade Agreement- is premised on cooperation and complementarity, not competition. Your proposal seeks to reshape our entire society. That's not going to happen.


Christophe Boco,
Ambassador to the United Nations,
PDSRA

My government generally supports 'Free Market' principles, but I have to agree with the Ariddian ambassador that as it's currently written this proposal would constitute an ideological ban and therefore be illegal under the UN's rules: At the very least, it would need an exemption for state-owned enterprises, to allow for the existence of Communist regimes under which all which all "businesses" (no matter how un-businesslike their management might actually be by other peoples' standards...) are owned by the state on a monopolistic basis and no competition at all is allowed.