Thai opinion: Today's monopolies come with their hair combed

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Today's monopolies come with their hair combed
Tulsathit Taptim

BANGKOK: -- If you Google "monopoly", the definition you get is "the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service". I would refine that meaning to: "The exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service that leaves you no choice but to pay for it even if you are angry." Being helplessly angry is the whole point, without which a monopoly won't feel like a monopoly.

And notice the singular noun in the Google provision. Thailand's current problem with monopoly has gone far beyond one particular product or service. The current uproar is against a corporation that many complain is controlling the supply of, or trade in, a slew of commodities and services. Cornering the market in a single item or service is now ancient history. Why hog just one thing when all sorts of products are up for grabs?

Let's get to the "angry" part. I'm sure a great portion of those cursing the corporation in question on Facebook or LINE or Twitter will have no choice but to buy something soon from a convenience store near them. Some may grit their teeth, but they will pass through that ding-dong door anyway. If you can boycott a monopoly, it's not a monopoly. It's as simple as that.

Are you happy with your cable TV subscription? There's a good chance you aren't. Are you satisfied with the network you chose for your smartphone? I doubt that you are. And the cable TV and telecom industries aren't total monopolies, are they? Yet you still feel unsatisfied or even taken advantage of sometimes. Why?

A monopoly can come to you with its hair combed - that's why. There have been bids and auctions and whatever else they call it, but the truth is that telecom or cable TV companies (here in Thailand, I might add) will compete against one another only to a certain extent. When the competition reaches a critical point for everyone's business (meaning obscene profits have significantly dropped), they will stop hurting one another and start looking around. What they see isn't hard to guess. They see "you".

We are led to believe that the "market mechanism" - demand and supply - sets most prices. Anyone who genuinely believes that should get a "Top Optimist Award". Even rival companies can conspire, directly or indirectly, to fix how much consumers should pay for, say, an after-graduation car.

We can suspect such a conspiracy, or we can cling to the belief that vehicles or smartphones produced by companies based in different countries, using different materials, hiring different work forces and employing different machinery have almost the same production costs and thereby virtually identical prices.

This explains the current uproar. People fear a monopoly because it prevents them from knowing the "real" price. Some foods, products or services may appear cheap, but without real competition, we can never know. But ultimately, people fear monopolies because they know the time will come when the company that has cornered the market will take advantage of its upper-hand. And when that day comes, all those feel-good advertisements will just add salt to the wound.

Those fears are made worse by knowledge that a monopoly is easy to maintain. If you want to walk the extra mile for a bottle of water from a mom-and-pop store, go ahead, some will say. I will nip through the nearest ding-dong door and quench my thirst right here and now. And if you want to brave traffic and fight with the cabby so you can pay your bills, fine. Just don't envy me when I walk 20 steps from my apartment and settle every debt I owe.

If a monopoly gives you choices, is it a monopoly? If you can do something quicker thanks to a convenience store a few metres from your doorstep, you should be thankful, shouldn't you? If you can watch live European soccer while those in other countries (including where the matches are taking place) can't, why are you complaining?

To sum it up, a monopoly is scary and yet easily defensible. And don't get me started on a monopoly's sneaky ability to mess up national politics. When the owner of a business, or businesses, becomes economically powerful, he gets bored. And even if he doesn't get bored, he will feel the urge to reinforce his "fortress", no matter how impregnable it is already. Either way, politics is the most tempting answer.

Like everything else, monopolies have evolved with time. Of course, we get angry about them, but it can be quite hard to pinpoint why. From "It's absolutely wrong", our reaction to monopolies has become "It doesn't feel right." What does "It doesn't feel right" really feel like? Just ask an anti-monopoly shopper who still chooses to go through the ding-dong door.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Todays-monopolies-come-with-their-hair-combed-30259938.html

-- The Nation 2015-05-13

[BSJ]

When I first started to read this I thought it maybe a great article....but it's just a whinge about the air conditioned, well lit convenience store down on the corner!