# Dominant group/Monopolistic practices

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." (Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter X). As "we enjoy great advantages from the invention of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by the invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously." (Writings of Benjamin Franklin, 1907).

## Dominant group

Examples from primary sources are to be used to prove or disprove each hypothesis. These can be collected per subject or in general.
* Accident hypothesis: dominant group is an accident of whatever processes are operating.
* Artifact hypothesis: dominant group may be an artifact of human endeavor or may have preceded humanity.
* Association hypothesis: dominant group is associated in some way with the original research.
* Bad group hypothesis: dominant group is the group that engages in discrimination, abuse, punishment, and additional criminal activity against other groups. It often has an unfair advantage and uses it to express monopolistic practices.
* Control group hypothesis: there is a control group that can be used to study dominant group.
* Entity hypothesis: dominant group is an entity within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
* Evolution hypothesis: dominant group is a product of evolutionary processes, such groups are the evolutionary process, produce evolutionary processes, or are independent of evolutionary processes.
* Identifier hypothesis: dominant group is an identifier used by primary source authors of original research to identify an observation in the process of analysis.
* Importance hypothesis: dominant group signifies original research results that usually need to be explained by theory and interpretation of experiments.
* Indicator hypothesis: dominant group may be an indicator of something as yet not understood by the primary author of original research.
* Influence hypothesis: dominant group is included in a primary source article containing original research to indicate influence or an influential phenomenon.
* Interest hypothesis: dominant group is a theoretical entity used by scholarly authors of primary sources for phenomena of interest.
* Metadefinition hypothesis: all uses of dominant group by all primary source authors of original research are included in the metadefinition for dominant group.
* Null hypothesis: there is no significant or special meaning of dominant group in any sentence or figure caption in any refereed journal article.
* Object hypothesis: dominant group is an object within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
* Obvious hypothesis: the only meaning of dominant group is the one found in Mosby's Medical Dictionary.
* Original research hypothesis: dominant group is included in a primary source article by the author to indicate that the article contains original research.
* Primordial hypothesis: dominant group is a primordial concept inherent to humans such that every language or other form of communication no matter how old or whether extinct, on the verge of extinction, or not, has at least a synonym for dominant group.
* Purpose hypothesis: dominant group is written into articles by authors for a purpose.
* Regional hypothesis: dominant group, when it occurs, is only a manifestation of the limitations within a region. Variation of those limitations may result in the loss of a dominant group with the eventual appearance of a new one or none at all.
* Source hypothesis: dominant group is a source within each field where a primary author of original research uses the term.
* Term hypothesis: dominant group is a significant term that may require a 'rigorous definition' or application and verification of an empirical definition.

## Monopolies

"The only fairly successful monopolistic cartel that has ever existed without state support is the diamond cartel."
"The income gained by those involved in these monopolistic practices was, in some cases, enormous."
"In 1988 the Act to counteract monopolistic practices in the national economy came into force and the Antimonopoly Office was founded."

## Oligopolies

Def. "an economic condition in which a small number of sellers exert control over the market of a commodity" is called an oligopoly.
The "case of asymmetric oligopoly [is] where a dominant group of producers imposes a selling price to a competitive fringe of producers, each too small to exert a perceptible influence on price through individual output decisions."
Exploitative "pricing abuses may arise not only under conditions of monopoly, where a single dominant company abuses its market power but also in markets jointly dominated by several actors (oligopoly)."
"Besides the usual model-estimation errors and additional stochastic influences not captured by the regression, the difference is likely to occur due to the fact that we do not explicitly model competition between the players of the dominant group. In order to capture this, we could use an oligopoly model with a competitive fringe, rather than a quasi-monopoly model, but that would complicate the mathematics significantly."

## Monopolistic practices

"From these brief remarks it emerges that the reality of the fief was made up of a series of rigid monopolistic practices that imprisoned the life of the peasants and blocked their personal development."

## Physicians

"It can be difficult to determine how and under what conditions a dominant group of physicians can profitably extend market power from one market to another."
"Often the dominant group in a conflictive equilibrium will adjust its tactics to maintain its power."
"By requiring specialized professional education along with their other restrictive practices, professional associations are bureaucratic. They function to enforce monopolistic practices."

## Government

"To have an idea of what monopolistic practices can bring to the coffers of the state it is appropriate to compare these figures with those of the English kingdom where the rulers did not have at their disposal a state machinery like that in France, able to monopolize resources and sell them at a very high price or to assign them, on payment of a fixed amount, to the highest bidder or to friends and cronies who behaved in the same exploitative way."
"From the XVII century up to almost the end of the XIX century the English kingdom was a region where monopolies and monopolistic practices were not supinely accepted. As remarked by Max Weber, the royal policy of monopolistic favouritism was opposed for decades by the Puritans under the Long Parliament and afterwards "under the war cry 'down with the monopolies'." (Max Weber, General Economic History, 1919-1920). That does not mean that monopolies ceased to exist in England. As a matter of fact in 1694 what was to become the most monopolistic economic organization of the realm was set up in the form of the Bank of England. Besides that, there was the East India Company who, in the course of its long history, received monopolistic or semi-monopolistic trading powers between India and England."
"The latter set of problems was first analysed in 1969 by Thurow who specifically isolated the effects of government discrimination, monopolistic practices of the dominant group and the contribution of market imperfections to the development and perpetuation of discriminatory behaviour."
Even "with recognition of the economic significance of governmental sectors, there is a lack of knowledge about the vital issues involved in the control of disadvantaged minorities by governments who usually act on behalf of the numerical majorities or the economically predominant."
"This observation is highly pertinent to socio-economic systems in which the dominant, controlling group must, for economic survival and welfare, enter into economic relationships with the disadvantaged group. To maintain control and to maximize its own welfare function, the dominant group usually seeks both economic domination and economic gain from that domination."

## Competition

"According to Weber, monopolistic practices occur among groups where there is open competitive struggle. Where this struggle is rationed or regulated by various methods or where it is appropriated by a dominant group on a permanent basis, he calls these appropriated advantages 'rights'."

## Hypotheses

* A dominant group that doesn't use monopolistic practices produces egalitarianism.