Capitalism and my father

In the 1980's my father and his brother started a company installing fiber-optic lines. They started with two trucks, four men, and more work than they could handle. They set their own prices, paid their employees a decent wage, and grew their company. My father was out of town a lot. He would start in Texas with a job that was scheduled and work his way back east to Georgia picking up jobs along the way from people who heard about how fast his company ran their lines. They were regarded as one of the quickest fiberoptic teams in the south. Bussiness was booming. My father was saving money left and right with no end in sight. Until a telephone company, now owned by AT&T, started taking over the 'free market'. Bellsouth had always been there, but they hadn't been a big competitor until the mid 90's.

Around this time Bellsouth started to dominate the market. They were able to buy trucks in bulk, at a lower price. My father could only buy 1 truck at a time. They were able to buy extremely large quantities of fiberoptic lines at large discounts, where as my father could only buy smaller increments at higher prices. The market became flooded with corporate trucks that charged a few cents less per foot and paid their employees a few cents less per hour. No longer could my father compete. His lowest possible price was still more than the huge company was charging. No matter how fast or high quality his company worked, Bellsouth was able to do it a little better because they could afford the new technology that his company and previous competitors could not. He was forced to give up his dream and shut down his company in the late 90's when I was just four years old.

This is just one example of how small companies have been consumed by larger corporations. Most children learn in school about the antitrust laws that are in place to ensure that no monopolies can dominate the market, but there are ways to get around everything. No, Bellsouth was not a monopoly because they did not control the entire fiberoptic industry, they did make it impossible for smaller companies to compete. My father could show you on a map which companies controlled the quadrants of the country. These companies would not go outside of their domain, they making sure that there was no monopoly in the entire USA, but were so powerful with their financial backing, tax cuts and incentives, and ability to work with other huge companies that they had a monopoly for their area.

Fiber optics are not the only place where you can see that the market is no longer free. In the defenition of capitalism by Merriam Webster the "economic system is characterized ... by investments that are determined by private decision." This is part of the issue. It takes money to make money. Large corporations looking to expand, as Bellsouth did, easily get funding from banks and the government. For me to try and expand or start my company is very unlikely. Banks, which privately decide my loan options, are unwilling to take a chance on loaning me what I need for my bussiness. They know what the market is like, thus knowing that it will be a struggle for me to compete, making it a chance that they may not get their money back as quickly as they want.

Smaller companies have a hard time getting their hand into the market. In Merriam Websters definition capitalism "prices, production, and the distribution of goods(are) determined mainly by competition in a free market." With this freedom comes challanges. Supply and demand set prices as is taught in every economics class, but for a smaller company their prices can only go so low. With the fear of financial loss by banks and federal funding organizations these companies are unable to get enough funding to produce their products and services at a low enough cost to market them at the same price as larger corporations. This is what happened to my father.

With the "free market" of today there is limited oportunity for growth. Fewer people are starting their own companies, more people are working for corporate owned businesses, and regulations are making it impossible to penetrate the market. Capitalism is not a perfect system, and when the term was coined in 1833 it was the best option for the people of that era, but something has got to give. I do not have a solution to the problems facing our market and capitalism in America as a whole. I do not know what tomorrow will bring for small businesses and the working class. I do know, however, that until something changes we will conitinue to see a decrease in people living their dreams and an increase in corporate ownership.

Merriam Webster's Defenition of Capitalism as sighted in my above rant.

"an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market"