I say again, there is no difference. Both result in higher prices for the item being monopolized, lower output and dead weight loss for society (this has a specific meaning in economics, it's basically the worst thing that can happen). All deadweight losses should be fixed. There is probably a difference in urgency given that the deadweight loss on food will be a lot higher because everyone eats and only a few consume Swiss watches, but that is outside of the scope of my question. My question was just to verify whether the op understood the problem and felt the same about both common versions of the problem or if there was a lack of understanding, or if they understood the problem but are stuck in one of the common logic traps stopping a rational conclusion from being formed.
They don't necessarily result in higher prices for society or dead weight loss. Look up natural monopoly.
If anything, government intervention such as breaking up monopolies creates dead weight loss. Sometimes this price is worth it (such as for food production), sometimes it's not (for example luxury goods).
Even if one were to assume all monopolies are bad, that would not necessarily mean all are equally bad, or that the optimal strategy for reducing their harm would be the same.
Finally, unions are not monopolies on labor. Some unions are sufficiently large that they can be modelled as monopolies, but in general only a small fraction of the labor force is unionized and most unions are limited in scope. You could just as easily say employers have a monopoly on employment at their companies, which would be a true but not particularly useful way of looking at them.
A natural monopoly is just a monopoly where the barrier to entry that makes a monopoly possible isn't manufactured via abuse or government (i.e. Mostly capital costs are too high to support investment by more than one or a small number of players). If the entity lucky enough to have that monopoly is profit maximizing it will definitely result in higher prices and dead weight loss. You are right though, that in this relatively small corner case the correct solution is regulation to force competitive pricing (of which there are many options I won't get into here), not breakup.
Of course all monopolies are bad. They are current or future points of deadweight loss and should be monitored and dealt with through regulation ( a very small subset of monopolies/oligopolies) or elimination. A monopoly is the forbidden fruit that everyone wants but noone should get for any length of time. That desire is a big driver of the innovation that is the secret sauce of a free market that makes it superior to every other economic organization method we have tried but once someone gets it it eliminates most of the need for any innovation and leaves that industry stagnating. How bad monopolies are (technically market power) is grossly understate in modern society in my opinion.
We are talking about government here. How bad something is isn't an argument for not doing something, it is an argument for priority. If your position is labor unions aren't as bad as X so we should sort X and then break up labor unions that's fine, but that's not what I'm hearing in this thread.
Of course they are monopolies on labor. most countries labor labor laws make them an explicit monopoly on labor for any workplace unlucky enough to be unionized. It's not relevant that they are non union companies employing non union labor. If your company is unionized it faces a monopoly on labor and can only hire union for the areas that are unionized unless the union allows non union. It is the textbook definition of a monopoly. (also, how do I sign up for this alternative non union government in my province/country? I would really enjoy the much lower taxes that would have from both lower labor prices but also much faster removal of incompetence via firing.. oh wait I can't sign up for that because there is no option because the public labour unions have a textbook monopoly). You can have natural monopolies at the employee level, however that is pretty rare because it means that employee is almost impossible to replace (this is why key man insurance exists basically). It's quite a lot different than saying all of X must be hired from the union where X is a whole class of worker that is fairly interchangeable with a reasonable labor supply but as a class is impossible or near impossible to do your business.
> A natural monopoly is just a monopoly where the barrier to entry that makes a monopoly possible isn't manufactured via abuse or government (i.e. Mostly capital costs are too high to support investment by more than one or a small number of players).
That's not what a natural monopoly is. Again, go look it up. It is also not a small edge case.
> Of course all monopolies are bad.
Again, this is just incorrect. Monopolies can be the most economically efficient option, and even when they are not there are things to consider besides economic efficiency. Monopoly is not the death of innovation - in an actual free market a monopoly can never rest on its laurels or it will have new market entrants coming to eat its lunch (and we see this in the real world, eg Myspace or Kodak). Certain anti-competitive measures that can be used to create monopolies are very dangerous to competition, but that is a different matter.
> We are talking about government here. How bad something is isn't an argument for not doing something, it is an argument for priority. If your position is labor unions aren't as bad as X so we should sort X and then break up labor unions that's fine, but that's not what I'm hearing in this thread.
Both murder and shoplifting are crimes. Crimes are bad, both murder and shoplifting cause problems for society. Everyone will agree that murder is worse than shoplifting, but that doesn't mean murder is simply a higher priority than shoplifting, and that when the resources necessary to go after murderers are freed up that they should be applied in the same manner towards shoplifters. Shoplifting and murder, while both subcategories of the same thing, are fundamentally different and the optimal responses to both fundamentally ought to be different.
You have not established that treating corporate monopolies and labor unions the same at any point in time is a good idea, nonetheless that it is the optimal course of action.
> If your company is unionized it faces a monopoly on labor and can only hire union for the areas that are unionized unless the union allows non union.
That's not how unions work.
> how do I sign up for this alternative non union government in my province/country?
Move to a country with laws more to your liking.
> You can have natural monopolies at the employee level, however that is pretty rare because it means that employee is almost impossible to replace
Again, not what a natural monopoly is.
> the union where X is a whole class of worker that is fairly interchangeable with a reasonable labor supply but as a class is impossible or near impossible to do your business.
