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points by dnautics 3 days ago | 0 comments

I'm not an economist but it's pretty obvious to me that walmartization is downstream of Financialization which is not inherently free market (its a product of centralized banking and interest rate and bailout policies)

[–] deaux 3 days ago

I don't see why Walmart wouldn't get this big even without centralized banking, bailouts, and hard money (say gold convertibility), thanks to economies of scale. In the late 1800s you had Standard Oil. That didn't need any of those things to arise.

Of course the things you mentioned further accelerate walmartization. But that's the chicken and the egg. The government does bailouts and prints cheap money because the corporations do exactly what I said: the winners (who arise naturally thanks to economies of scale) will put their resources into gaining these things.

[–] dnautics 3 days ago

sure. It's less likely let's say. More opportunity for competition to arise per business cycle when growth is still there but has natural drag due to money not being cheap.