NationStates Jolt Archive

I have a question will anyone support an Anti Trust act to prevent buisness monopolies.

Little as we like monopolies, we would have to ask how this is an international matter. International monopolies in a world the size of ours do not form easily, and it is hard to see how a national monopoly will be capable of more than limited harm. There are even forms of monopoly -- government controlled ones -- which we consider to be beneficial to the average citizen of a nation, so it is clear that any such proposal would have to be carefully aimed not to have deleterious effects.

My nation does not support businness tycoons and monoplies. Therefor we will support any proposal to stop this nonsense.

Ambassador from Queenslandburg
Q Thomas

Can we concentrate in our Tourism? To attract foreigners :)

So that we can help our people in our country!

that's all ^_^

Local business is exactly what it say it is, local. Monopolies are the business of a country to handle, and not the World Assembly. Jennings & Rall will in no way support this proposed resolution if it is taken to anything near a draft.

- World Assembly Ambassador Matthew Blake

I have finally finished the first draft.

The Anti-Trust Act
Problem: One problem in an economy with competing businesses is when all of the makers of a product are owned by one person and since they don’t have competition they can raise prices without losing business because they are the only supplier.

Solution: Internationally there has to be at least four major suppliers of each resource.

Definition of a supplier: A major supplier is a business that creates a product and distributes it widely. For example a small local store selling homemade candles is not a major supplier but a chain of stores selling factory built candles on a large scale is a major provider.

Exceptions: This resolution exempts government created monopolies and not for profit monopolies.

First off, the delegation from Gnoria would like to register its support for some sort of legislation on this topic. Even if international monopolies are rare (which is very true), they would pose a serious threat if they did arise. Furthermore, international monopolies even in a small segment of the market could have grevious consequences.

However, the present proposal has a serious flaw: the fact that it doesn't actually do anything that it has to do. It's like passing a resolution saying that "Poverty must be eliminated." Well, okay. I'll tell poverty that it needs to be eliminated. What the proposal needs to say is how we are going to limit monopolies - what the goverments of the world will do to keep this problem from happening. The Gnorian delegation believes that wording a proposal to have some effect in this area will be quite difficult. We would be willing to assist in this cause, however.

Douglas Moore
Secretary to the WA

We wont be supporting any form of legislation to this effect.

WYMP

This is asinine, the World Assembly has no right to govern our economies. If we wish to permit monopolies to form, we will do so, and I am not afraid to admit that there are cases in which our government, a corporate entity as well as authority, controls an exclusive market.

Let us not punish businesses that have grown to become a monopoly just because some are bad. As much as I hate to admit it, I believe that our nation would seceed from the World Assembly should a resolution similar to this pass.

- World Assembly Ambassador Matthew Blake

I agree with Matthew Blake, some large monopolies become corrupt, but that is no reason to restrict all of them. While my nations economy is in a bad way as of right now, capitalism is a corner stone of my people. I will not be supporting any legislation like this.

-President of The Commonwealth of East Central America, John Erickson.

It is hard to see this leading to anything constructive. I would rather see encouragement of local business and small companies. Perhaps a small firm support is better?

I could get behind that, encouraging small business rather than banning big business.

If any of you have any ideas on promoting small buisness i will listn to them at try to embed them into the proposal

If I surmise correctly, we are not trying to ban all monopolies, only monopolies where the monopolist is engaging in anticompetitive practices that prevent others from attempting to challenge their dominance and, in doing so, provide a check on their power.

The following is the Gnorian suggestion for a proposal on this topic. Frankly, it's awful, and probably needs significant changes in terms of both wording, definitions, and effects. However, it's a starting point for what we envision as a good resolution for this topic.

Preservation of Competition

Category: Free Trade/Social Justice
Strength: Mild/Significant

OBSERVING that the sphere of international trade is essentially a free market,

UNDERSTANDING that a free market requires competition in order to provide checks and balances on the power of corporations and individuals, as well as to promote lower prices and higher quality of goods and services,

COGNIZANT of the reality that an individual, corporation or nation in the position of a monopoly can stifle competition by engaging in anticompetitive practices, thereby insulating themselves from these checks, balances, and stimuli to improve,

NOTING that international monopolies are especially dangerous in this regard in that they take control of a market on a much larger scale than intranational monopolies,

The World Assembly hereby RESOLVES to enact the following provisions:

1. The following definitions are hereby agreed to for the purposes of this resolution:
(a) "anticompetitive practice" as a behavior that restricts the ability of competitors to compete in a market, including price fixing, refusing to deal, predatory pricing, tying, etc.,
(b) "monopoly" as a corporation enjoying sole or near-sole control over a given market outside of its home nation, and
(c) "multinational corporation" as a corporation operating in multiple WA states.

2. The World Assembly Trade Commission (WATC) is hereby founded for the purpose of arbitrating cases and determining statuses under this resolution.

3. If a multinational corporation becomes a monopoly in a multinational geographical area, the home nation of that corporation must prevent it from engaging in anticompetititive practices to the extent that this is possible.

4. The WATC shall have the authority to determine monopoly status of corporations and determine what actions constitute anticompetitive practices, within the definitions outlined above.

5. In the event that the WATC judges a nation to be allowing anticompetitive practices to be used by multinational monopolies, it shall make that judgment public.

6. Nations shall have the right to place tariffs, embargoes or other sanctions or restrictions on corporations engaging in anticompetitive practices or on nations who allow these practices to be perpetuated.

Douglas Moore
Secretary to the WA

It is usually a mistake to try to do two things with one proposal. A "Help small business" proposal and a separate "crush monopolies" proposal might be easier to write.

Two things should be standard for proposal writers:


Make sure there's no existing legislation covering the same area

READ THE STICKIES on how to write legal proposals.


The third thing, of course, is Post A Draft Before You Submit, but you're doing that. Good on yer!

thanks for the advice

1. I dont think there is any legislation about this topic
2. i will look at the stickies

What about businesses that are monopolies because they actually invented (and patented, or kept secret, the production details of) the products that they're selling? If you force those to share their secrets, or impose punitive tariffs because of their monopoly status, then you discourage innovation...

This is my slightly modified version of your draft Gnoria, the changes are in italics.


Preservation of Competition

Category: Free Trade/Social Justice
Strength: Mild/Significant

OBSERVING that the sphere of international trade is essentially a free market,

UNDERSTANDING that a free market requires competition in order to provide checks and balances on the power of corporations and individuals, as well as to promote lower prices and higher quality of goods and services,

COGNIZANT of the reality that an individual, corporation or nation in the position of a monopoly can stifle competition by engaging in anticompetitive practices, thereby insulating themselves from these checks, balances, and stimuli to improve,

NOTING that international monopolies are especially dangerous in this regard in that they take control of a market on a much larger scale than intranational monopolies,

The World Assembly hereby RESOLVES to enact the following provisions:

1. The following definitions are hereby agreed to for the purposes of this resolution:
(a) "anticompetitive practice" as a behavior that restricts the ability of competitors to compete in a market, including price fixing, refusing to deal, predatory pricing, tying, etc.,
(b) "monopoly" as a corporation enjoying sole or near-sole control over a given market outside of its home nation,
(c) "multinational corporation" as a corporation operating in multiple WA states
(d) and, this resolution exempts from this law government created monopolies.

2. The World Assembly Trade Commission (WATC) is hereby founded for the purpose of arbitrating cases and determining statuses under this resolution.

3. If a multinational corporation becomes a monopoly in a multinational geographical area, the home nation of that corporation must prevent it from engaging in anticompetititive practices to the extent that this is possible.

4. The WATC shall have the authority to determine monopoly status of corporations and determine what actions constitute anticompetitive practices, within the definitions outlined above.

5. In the event that the WATC judges a nation to be allowing anticompetitive practices to be used by multinational monopolies, it shall make that judgment public.

6. The WATC can if necessary break up a company into many smaller companies and ban the new companies banned from merging ever.

7. Nations shall have the right to place tariffs, embargoes or other sanctions or restrictions on corporations engaging in anticompetitive practices or on nations who allow these practices to be perpetuated.

Some comments.

Category: Free Trade/Social Justice
This is certainly not "Social Justice", and we think the proposer would have to talk rather fast to class it as "Free Trade". That said, no other category is remotely plausible, so we suggest that the category "Free Trade" is selected and the preamble to the proposal makes some effort to justify this choice.

OBSERVING that the sphere of international trade is essentially a free market,
We have a serious problem with this statement. We observe that international trade currently operates quite freely, but it is within the purview of the World Assembly to change that. Indeed, this proposal itself would apply a degree of management to the international economy, in as much as such a thing exists. This statement therefore sets an agenda within the World Assembly, declaring that the WA is broadly speaking in favour of free market trading. Since we are assuredly not in agreement with that agenda, we would be utterly unable to support the proposal.

2. The World Assembly Trade Commission (WATC) is hereby founded for the purpose of arbitrating cases and determining statuses under this resolution.
The WATC has already been founded by resolution 26, World Assembly Economic Union (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14283248&postcount=28). If you wish to use the same committee, which would be generally considered admirable, it is sufficient to add these arbitrartion and determination duties to the WATC. Under WA rules, even if resolution 26 were subsequently repealed, the WATC would remain with the duties this proposal assigned to it.

3. If a multinational corporation becomes a monopoly in a multinational geographical area, the home nation of that corporation must prevent it from engaging in anticompetititive practices to the extent that this is possible.
The weasel words "to the extent that this is possible" render the proposal toothless.

5. In the event that the WATC judges a nation to be allowing anticompetitive practices to be used by multinational monopolies, it shall make that judgment public.
Given the brazen necks regularly exhibited in this chamber, we cannot imagine this will have the slightest effect.

6. The WATC can if necessary break up a company into many smaller companies and ban the new companies banned from merging ever.
This is intriguing in as much as it is the only direct action the WATC is authorised to take in this proposal. The only other active directive has been to national governments. Is there a particular reason why national governments are not trusted to take this particular action, but are trusted to take others?

7. Nations shall have the right to place tariffs, embargoes or other sanctions or restrictions on corporations engaging in anticompetitive practices or on nations who allow these practices to be perpetuated.
We are not convinced that this does not contradict clause 6 of the World Assembly Economic Union.