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| ⚫ | A '''compulsory cartel''' or '''forced cartel''' is a [[cartel]] that is established or maintained by an administrative order or by a legal directive. The interference of policies on these associations of entrepreneurs of the same trade varied. It ranged from a mere decision to establish a cartel or to maintain an existing one, to a strict state control.<ref>Holm A. Leonhardt: ''Kartelltheorie und Internationale Beziehungen. Theoriegeschichtliche Studien'', Hildesheim 2013, p. 144-145. </ref> |
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{{POV|date=February 2024}} |
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A '''compulsory cartel''' or '''forced cartel''' is a [[cartel]] usually on the state's territory, that is established or maintained through coercion (compulsion) against the rights of the individual or [[natural person]]s by the state<ref>{{cite book|title=Machinery of freedom |year=1989|edition= 2nd |author=[[David D. Friedman]]|url=https://archive.org/details/TheMachineryOfFreedom/page/n65/mode/2up}} Citation (p. 59): "A government is an agency of legitimized coercion. I define 'coercion', for the purposes of this definition, as the violation of what people in a particular society believe to be the rights of individuals with respect to other individuals."</ref>, where a violation of the rights of the individual is understood as the initiation of forceful action (defined as if it were a minimal state), also called ([[Non-aggression_principle|aggression]]) i.e. in short, aggression by a state against either private property rights, private contract rights or a constitution of either, a minimal state ([[minarchism]]), a state implementing a [[market economy]], or where the state is simply understood as the territorial owner in [[International_legal_theories#Anarcho-capitalism|anarcho-capitalism]] and a [[free-market]] exists between all individuals. The cartel is understood the be formed by a ''cartel agreement'' binding all inhabitants by law, so violation of the cartel agreement to gain competitive advantage w.r.t. some customers is not allowed or discouraged. The cartel agreement commonly takes the form of a [[wikt:privilege|privilege]] granted by the state, where privilege is understood as a benefit, advantage or favor enjoyed by the members of one group only. The ''cartel agreement'' can be implemented [[de jure]] i.e. directly formulated in law, or [[de facto]], i.e. as a certain consequence of the law. |
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| ⚫ | The interference of policies on these associations of entrepreneurs of the same trade varied. It ranged from a mere decision to establish a cartel or to maintain an existing one, to a strict state control.<ref>Holm A. Leonhardt: ''Kartelltheorie und Internationale Beziehungen. Theoriegeschichtliche Studien'', Hildesheim 2013, p. 144-145. |
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== Disagreement over the nature of compulsory cartels == |
== Disagreement over the nature of compulsory cartels == |
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The understanding of “compulsory cartels” as “cartels” has always been disputed.<ref>Holm A. Leonhardt: ''Kartelltheorie und Internationale Beziehungen. Theoriegeschichtliche Studien'', Hildesheim 2013, p. 146-155.</ref> While the older cartel experts before the 1930s usually insisted in the free entrepreneurial will that constituted a “cartel”, later authors were more tolerant and accepted forced cartels as an exception. In recent times (2007), the economic-historian Jeffrey R. Fear took this stance of the “exception to the rule” that would not contradict the general nature of these organizations.<ref>Jeffrey R. Fear: Cartels. In: Geoffrey Jones; Jonathan Zeitlin (ed.): The Oxford handbook of business history. Oxford: Univ. Press, 2007, p. 271.</ref> The cartel-historian [[Holm Arno Leonhardt]] has positioned himself more differentiated in 2013: Forced cartels that were embedded in a totalitarian [[planned economy|planning economy]] or were by other means unable to realize their own will, should be regarded as organs or appendages of another system.<ref>Holm A. Leonhardt: ''Kartelltheorie und Internationale Beziehungen. Theoriegeschichtliche Studien'', Hildesheim 2013, p. 164-165.</ref> Thus, “compulsory cartels” without a permanent political influence could indeed constitute real “cartels”, while others being under strict control acted mainly as servants of an alien will. |
The understanding of “compulsory cartels” as “cartels” has always been disputed.<ref>Holm A. Leonhardt: ''Kartelltheorie und Internationale Beziehungen. Theoriegeschichtliche Studien'', Hildesheim 2013, p. 146-155.</ref> While the older cartel experts before the 1930s usually insisted in the free entrepreneurial will that constituted a “cartel”, later authors were more tolerant and accepted forced cartels as an exception. In recent times (2007), the economic-historian Jeffrey R. Fear took this stance of the “exception to the rule” that would not contradict the general nature of these organizations.<ref>Jeffrey R. Fear: Cartels. In: Geoffrey Jones; Jonathan Zeitlin (ed.): The Oxford handbook of business history. Oxford: Univ. Press, 2007, p. 271.</ref> The cartel-historian [[Holm Arno Leonhardt]] has positioned himself more differentiated in 2013: Forced cartels that were embedded in a totalitarian [[planned economy|planning economy]] or were by other means unable to realize their own will, should be regarded as organs or appendages of another system.<ref>Holm A. Leonhardt: ''Kartelltheorie und Internationale Beziehungen. Theoriegeschichtliche Studien'', Hildesheim 2013, p. 164-165.</ref> Thus, “compulsory cartels” without a permanent political influence could indeed constitute real “cartels”, while others being under strict control acted mainly as servants of an alien will. |
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==Types of compulsory cartels== |
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A compulsory [[wikt:cartel|cartel]] is a group of businesses that [[Collusion|collude]] together with the government to limit competition within an industry or market, by installing a cartel agreement, which is directly or indirectly enforced by the government. The cartel agreement [[Regulatory economics|regulates]] the means of production or the distribution of goods and services in a goods and services category (market segment), which is a form of [[economic interventionism]]. For example, a directly enforced cartel of workers is created when a [[minimum wage]] is established by law, which eliminates the [[market economy]] only to workers with a productivity below the minimum wage, like starters. |
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===Compulsory medical cartel=== |
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{{Main|Health care rationing}} |
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There are also cartels that eliminate the market economy for a category of goods or services. An example is the corona vaccination program in [[The Netherlands]]. The government may sets a mandatory basic health care 'insurance' policy implementing a Marxist [[egalitarianism|egalitarian]] distribution of medical goods and services according to a necessity scheme. An example is the British [[NHS]]. But a market economy in healthcare was maintained that implicitly makes the patients to renounce NHS health care, when contracting for private health care. No [[market economy]] for basic health care insurances and basic medical goods and services was ultimately left in the [[Health care rationing#Economic totalitarian market-driven medical welfare state in the Netherlands|Dutch healthcare system]] which is a form of 'welfare-state capitalism'. These insurance companies are privately owned and receive enormous amounts of tax money from the government as part of the 'cartel agreement' that resulted in the creation of the public insurance cartel and the health care provider cartel. [[File:Head_On_Collision.jpg|thumb|Two-car collision.]] Note that the former cartel has to accept all patients and competes to reduce spending on reimbursements, which can be achieved when the later cartel becomes subject to a cartel agreement negotiated between the insurance companies and the health care providers. This agreement resulted in the elimination of a market economy in health care goods and services distribution, i.e. patients cannot buy health care, including [[preventive healthcare]] like blood tests, colonoscopies and MRI scans. In this case the cartel agreement was the indirect result of regulation and set by the insurance cartel instead of directly by the government. |
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=== Economic totalitarianism === |
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The Dutch medical welfare state cartel is an example of a welfare state cartel that eliminated the market economy. In the spirit of Milton Friedman, '''economic totalitarianism''' is the elimination of the market economy, in goods and services category, by state regulation and against the [[free-market]].<ref name="milton">{{cite book |first=Milton |last=Friedman |author-link=Milton Friedman |publisher=Phoenix Press|title=[[Capitalism and Freedom]] |year=1962 |isbn=0-226-26421-1 |page=17}}</ref> |
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'Economic totalitarianism' is a term used by [[Milton Friedman]] in ''[[Capitalism and Freedom]]'': |
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<blockquote>History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition. Fascist Italy and Fascist Spain, Germany at various times in the last seventy years, Japan before World Wars I and II, tzarist Russia in the decades before World War I -- are all societies that cannot conceivably be described as politically free. Yet, in each, private enterprise was the dominant form of economic organization. It is therefore clearly possible to have economic arrangements that are fundamentally capitalist and political arrangements that are not free. Even in those societies, the citizenry had a good deal more freedom than citizens of a modern totalitarian state like Russia or Nazi Germany, in which '''economic totalitarianism''' is combined with political totalitarianism. Even in Russia under the Tzars, it was possible for some citizens, under some circumstances, to change their jobs without getting permission from political authority because capitalism and the existence of private property provided some check to the centralized power of the state. - Friedman, 1962</blockquote> |
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===Compulsory banking cartel=== |
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{{Main|history of banking}} |
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A money or banking cartel is usually enforced by [[legal tender]] laws and [[anti money-laundering]] (AML) and [[counter terrorism financing]] (CTF) regulation. For example, in the Netherlands, the [[:nl:Wet ter voorkoming van witwassen en financieren van terrorisme|Dutch AML law]] bans any cash transactions above 3000 euros. A further development of the banking and money cartel are the [[Central bank digital currency]]'s (CBDC). [[Online banking]] being already digital, CBDC's distinguish in their ability to control users, to make it easier for state's to stop financial transactions and to fight crime. |
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===Compulsory state cartel=== |
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{{Main|state cartel theory}} |
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The [[monopoly on violence]] or force (MOF), defined as a [[sovereign state|(sovereign) state]]s ban on the use of physical force by [[natural persons]] outside of another states territory and excluding [[diplomatic law|agents]] of another state e.g. [[just war theory|legitimately]] defending soldiers of another state. The MOF doctrine denies natural persons fundamental rights, ultimately because it denies the [[right to self-defense]] of inhabitants, also characterized as the [[right to resist]], [[right to revolution]] or [[rebellion|right to revolt]]. [[Human rights]] are not actually fundamental rights because they are [[inter partes]] law (treaties) and not [[erga omnes]], and according to the MOF cannot directly be enforced by natural persons. The [[non-aggression principle]] (NAP) is often formulated as the right to do whatever with your property (sovereign territory), except aggression defined as the initiation of the 'application or threat' of 'physical force or fraud (contract breach)'. Within the NAP, the installation of a violence ban on [[Allodial title|property]] by the owner is not a MOF, because the rule would cease to hold when aggression is applied by the owner. |
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[[File:CourtGavel.JPG|thumb|left|250px|A judge, usually ruling with a gavel, can only have ultimate arbitration right in cases not involving itself, according to the NAP.]] |
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So, assuming the NAP, the usage of non-aggressive physical force defense is allowed. So natural persons do have the right to self-defense against a government that initiates force. The state, in the statist definition, is a government that has the right to initiate force against natural persons outside the borders of other states.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Ayn |last1=Rand |title=[[Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal]] |year=1966 |chapter=3. AMERICA'S PERSECUTED MINORITY: BIG BUSINESS |page=27 }} Citation: "The difference between political power and any other kind of social "power," between a government and any private organization, is the fact that a government holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force. .. The only proper function of the government of a free country is to act as an agency which protects the individual's rights, i.e., which protects the individual from physical violence. .. A statist is a man who believes that some men have the right to force, coerce, enslave, rob, and murder others. To be put into practice, this belief has to be implemented by the political doctrine that the government—the state—has the right to initiate the use of physical force against its citizens. How often force is to be used, against whom, to what extent, for what purpose and for whose benefit, are irrelevant questions. The basic principle and the ultimate results of all statist doctrines are the same: dictatorship and destruction. The rest is only a matter of time."</ref> States usually do acknowledge a ban on aggression against other states. The monopoly on violence is also characterized by the right to ultimate arbitration, also called [[jurisdiction]], in disputes with natural persons, because if the state holds the MOF then it will under no circumstances deprive itself from its inviolabilities, i.e. the laws it created, and if the state holds jurisdiction its judges can decide so. Examples of such disputes are (a) the state violates the law that binds itself (fraud), e.g. a [[coup d'etat]] or (b) the state invades (phsycal force) the property of settlers outside territories owned by other governments or natural persons. In such cases the state can rule in favor if itself, and usually will if it would be in jeopardy otherwise. This is usually accepted by other states because they acknowledge the monopoly on violence and reject the NAP. According to the NAP a government may have to be desolved in such case, leading to [[secession]] of some constituents. Therefore, all states together form a compulsory state cartel of illegitimate use of forceful action, i.e. aggression. Usually when inhabitants are pulling in protection from outside of a state, this is considered a form of [[treason]] by that state also when the state itself was guilty of aggressing upon natural persons. |
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==Examples== |
==Examples== |
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Latest revision as of 16:16, 16 August 2024
A compulsory cartel or forced cartel is a cartel that is established or maintained by an administrative order or by a legal directive. The interference of policies on these associations of entrepreneurs of the same trade varied. It ranged from a mere decision to establish a cartel or to maintain an existing one, to a strict state control.[1]
Disagreement over the nature of compulsory cartels
[edit]The understanding of “compulsory cartels” as “cartels” has always been disputed.[2] While the older cartel experts before the 1930s usually insisted in the free entrepreneurial will that constituted a “cartel”, later authors were more tolerant and accepted forced cartels as an exception. In recent times (2007), the economic-historian Jeffrey R. Fear took this stance of the “exception to the rule” that would not contradict the general nature of these organizations.[3] The cartel-historian Holm Arno Leonhardt has positioned himself more differentiated in 2013: Forced cartels that were embedded in a totalitarian planning economy or were by other means unable to realize their own will, should be regarded as organs or appendages of another system.[4] Thus, “compulsory cartels” without a permanent political influence could indeed constitute real “cartels”, while others being under strict control acted mainly as servants of an alien will.
Examples
[edit]- German potash syndicate:[5] This was since 1919 a public-law body and was integrated into a control structure with its customers, laborers, traders and instances of administration.
- Japanese steel cartel of the 1930s.[6]
- Rhenish-Westphalian Coal Syndicate, Northwest Germany:[7] This too was since 1919 a public body and integrated into a similar control structure as the German potash syndicate.
- Russian sugar syndicate of the 1890s.[citation needed]
See also
[edit]Bibliography
[edit]- Fear, Jeffrey R.: Cartels. In: Geoffrey Jones; Jonathan Zeitlin (ed.): The Oxford handbook of business history. Oxford: Univ. Press, 2007, p. 268-293.
- Leonhardt, Holm Arno: Kartelltheorie und Internationale Beziehungen. Theoriegeschichtliche Studien, Hildesheim 2013.
- Korrell, Emil: Zwangskartelle als Mittel gegen ruinöse Konkurrenz. Forchheim 1937.
- Liefmann, Robert: Cartels, Concerns and Trusts, Ontario 2001 [London 1932]
References
[edit]- ^ Holm A. Leonhardt: Kartelltheorie und Internationale Beziehungen. Theoriegeschichtliche Studien, Hildesheim 2013, p. 144-145.
- ^ Holm A. Leonhardt: Kartelltheorie und Internationale Beziehungen. Theoriegeschichtliche Studien, Hildesheim 2013, p. 146-155.
- ^ Jeffrey R. Fear: Cartels. In: Geoffrey Jones; Jonathan Zeitlin (ed.): The Oxford handbook of business history. Oxford: Univ. Press, 2007, p. 271.
- ^ Holm A. Leonhardt: Kartelltheorie und Internationale Beziehungen. Theoriegeschichtliche Studien, Hildesheim 2013, p. 164-165.
- ^ Liefmann, Robert: Cartels, Concerns and Trusts, Ontario 2001 [London 1932], p. 267.
- ^ Hausleiter, Leo (1932): Revolution der Weltwirtschaft. München, p. 200.
- ^ Liefmann, Robert: Cartels, Concerns and Trusts, Ontario 2001 [London 1932], p. 268.