Teoria do Monopólio

Novos desenvolvimentos por Murray N. Rothbard:

Introdução: quem estiver interessado deve ler este texto na integra que é um resumo reliazado por Hoppe em Murray N. Rothbard: Economics, Science, and Liberty e ler o capitulo integral 10 MONOPOLY AND COMPETITION, do seu Tratado de Economia, Man, Economy and the State, que não só sistematizou toda a Teoria "Austriaca", como introduz alguns desenvolvimentos.

Algumas ideias :

Monopólio só existe quando existem barreiras legais à entrada ou actividade (regulamentos) providenciadas e impostos pelo Estado à sociedade civil. Aliás, a origem da palavra Monopólio, vem do tempo do absolutismo que começou a conceder previlégios, por legislação, tendo depois transitado para o fascismo, corporativismo e a social-democracia. Aliás, é curioso ver uma entidade monopolista (o próprio Estado) que não só concede monopólios (barreiras e regulação) como estabelece agências-anti-monopólio baseado em definições/medições que neste texto se prova serem impossíveis de estabelecer. O mais certo seria dizer que o Estado regula os próprios Monopólios que induz a que existam. Como dizia Mises, um intervencionismo leva a outro intervencionismo, por isso não existem soluções de compromisso para liberais.

A contradição da definição de Monopólio numa economia livre é que ("every entrepreneur will set his price at such a height that any price higher than the actually chosen one will encounter an elastic demand, and thus lead to lower sales revenues."). Ler o desenvolvimento do argumento mais abaixo.

Uma outra contribuição, foi aplicar o "Teorema da Impossibilidade do Cálculo Económico do Socialismo" (estabelecido por Mises nos anos 20) à própria economia capitalista, no que respeita à tão temida e enunciada questão do tamanho das Corporações (que o socialismo diz terem , no capitalismo, tendência para crescerem até ao infinito se eles próprios não o impedirem). COm esta aplicação, Rothbard, tira a conclusão lógica que uma Corporação com integração de actividades, não pode crescer ao ponto de ser impossível ter preços económicos que possa usar nos seus cálculos. Os preços internos numa Corporação equivalem à fútil tentativa do Socialismo de atribuir preços a factores e produtos.

Só existem preços, na medida em que uma troca voluntária se dá entre dois proprietários (por isso, só existe desenvolvimento numa eocnomia com divisão de trabalho com direitos de propriedade). E são esses preços, os únicos válidos no cálculo económico. O planeamento (quer do Estado, quer das corporações) mata o p´roprio planeamento ao deixar de poder contar com a informação de preços. E isso limita económicamente por natureza o tamanho da firma.

" Rothbard’s positive doctrine of competition and monopoly is plain and simple (as a theory should be).

(...) competition means the existence of unrestricted “free entry.” Every individual is at liberty to employ his own property in any way he sees fit, and to enter any line of production deemed profitable. As long as this free-entry condition is met, Rothbard concluded, all product prices and production costs tend to be minimum prices and minimum costs.

In distinct contrast, monopoly and monopolistic competition are defined by the absence of free entry, i.e., as the presence of exclusive privilege. The state, defined as the compulsory territorial monopolist of jurisdiction and protection, is thus the prototype of a monopoly.

(...) As long as free entry is restricted or absent, concluded Rothbard, whether in the production of justice and security or that of any other good or service, product prices and production costs will be higher than otherwise, i.e., too high.

(...) It is nonsense, for instance, to define a monopolist as someone who has control over his price (a “price-searcher”). ...Hence, under this definition, no one exists who is not a monopolist.

Likewise, is it nonsense to define a monopolist as “the only seller of any given good,” for in an objective sense, every seller of every product is always the only seller of his own unique product (brand). Thus, everyone is a monopolist with a one-hundred-percent market share of one’s own product.

Yet, this circumstance does not affect in the slightest that each entrepreneur must compete at all times with every other entrepreneur for consumer spending, regardless how unique or different one’s goods may be.

On the other hand, in a subjective sense, no seller of anything can ever be established definitely as a monopolist. According to this interpretation, the term “given good” means “a good as defined by consumers.” Thus, the determination of whether or not the seller of something is its only seller, or of how large his market-share is, depends on the consumers’ definition of what this good is; that is, on their classification of particular physical objects into various groups of homogeneous goods.

Not only can such classifications continually change, but different consumers can classify the same physical objects differently. Hence, in this sense the term monopolist becomes practically useless and non-operational, and all attempts to measure a product’s market share must be considered futile.

Finally, Mises’s theory of monopoly price is untenable. (...) Monopoly prices are only prices at which it is more advantageous for the monopolist to restrict the total amount to be sold than to expand its sales to the limit which a competitive market would allow.[19]

As Rothbard explained, this argument is fallacious.

First off,

it will have to be noted that every restrictive action must, by definition, have a complementary expansionary aspect. The factors of production which the monopolist releases from employment in some production line A do not simply disappear. Rather, they must be used otherwise: either for the production of another exchange good B, or for an expansion in the production of the consumer good of leisure for its owner.

Thus, even if monopoly prices existed, this would have no negative welfare-social utility-implications. From the monopolist’s act of not-selling, it follows that he must believe himself to be better off keeping rather than selling his goods, and no one else is made worse off because of his act ( because everyone else still controls the same quantity of goods as before).

Consequently, Mises’s monopoly price and the shape of the demand curve facing a monopolist cannot be operationally or conceptually distinguished from any other price and demand curve facing any other seller.

Production, explained Rothbard, precedes the sale of final products, and production costs must be incurred before consumers can demonstrate their preference for one’s products. Hence, it is nonsense, for instance, to define a monopoly price as a price above marginal cost (or of marginal revenue higher than marginal cost) because the cost curves on the one hand and the demand and revenue curves on the other do not exist simultaneously.

The only curves that exist simultaneously with cost curves are entrepreneurially estimated future demand and revenue curves. However, in deciding on the quantity of goods to be produced, every producer will always set his output so as to maximize his expected money earnings, ceteris paribus. That is, in the monetary calculations leading to his output-decision, expected price and marginal revenue are never equal to marginal cost.

No one will produce anything unless he expects its price to exceed its cost; and no one will expand his output, unless he expects marginal revenue to be higher than marginal cost.

...Likewise, at the subsequent point of sale when all costs have been incurred by the producer and the only relevant demand is that of consumers for existing stocks of produced products, every entrepreneur will assume a downward sloping demand curve. That is, every entrepreneur will set his price at such a height that any price higher than the actually chosen one will encounter an elastic demand, and thus lead to lower sales revenues.

...At the point of sale, the entrepreneur can come to the conclusion that he mistakenly produced either “too little” or “too much.” ...

In any case, whether or not his original forecast was correct, every entrepreneur must subsequently make a new output decision. Under the assumption that they regard their past experience (present demand) as indicative of their future experience (demand), three possible decisions exist. Entrepreneurs whose initial forecasts had been correct will produce the same quantity as before. Entrepreneurs who had initially produced “too little” will now produce a larger quantity, and entrepreneurs who had previously produced “too much” will restrict current sales and future production.

How, asked Rothbard, can this latter entrepreneurial response to earlier overproduction be distinguished from Mises’s alleged “monopoly price” situation? He answered that in fact it could not.

...In the real world, a demand curve is not simply “given” to a producer, but must be estimated and discovered. If a producer has produced too much in one period and, in order to earn more income, produces less in the next period, this is all that can be said about the action. . . . Thus, we cannot use “restriction of production” as the test of monopoly vs. competitive price.

...On the free market, there is no way of distinguishing a “monopoly price” from a “competitive price” or a “subcompetitive price” or of establishing any changes as movements from one to the other. No criteria can be found for making such distinctions. The concept of monopoly price as distinguished from competitive price is therefore untenable. We can only speak of the free-market price.[20]

In addition to these major innovations, Rothbard contributed many new theoretical insights.

Two examples will have to suffice here. For one, Rothbard utilized the well-known Misesian argument concerning the impossibility of economic calculation (cost-accounting) under socialism in order to demonstrate, even more generally, the impossibility of one big cartel on the free market.[21]

[T]he free market placed definite limits on the size of the firm, i.e., the limits of calculability on the market. In order to calculate the profits and losses of each branch, a firm must be able to refer its internal operations to external markets for each of the various factors and intermediate products. (...) One big cartel would not be able rationally to allocate producers’ goods at all and hence could not avoid severe losses. Consequently, it could never really be established, and, if tried, would quickly break asunder.[22]