andrew

From what you said, one could say, "It seems that the government must prevent people from acquiring assualt rifles, and possibly some hand guns and semi-automatic weapons, under the idea that the only possible use is to harm others and the idea that they are simply too dangerous and could uniquely destabilize society." I would say this goes back that whole concept of "guns don't kill people, people kill people." My point is that a private individual could acquire a nuclear weapon but never use it as a threat. I see your point, but the problem is where do we objectively draw the line?

I' m pretty sure nuclear weapons would be rather expensive if introduced into an open market

A monoply sometimes emerges naturally when a firm experiences economies of scale, as reflected by a downward-sloping, long-run average cost curve (cost per unit on the y-axis and quantity per period on the x-axis). A single firm can sometimes supply market demand at a lower average cost per unit than could two or more firms operating at smaller rates of output. To put it another way, market demand is not great enough to permit more than one firm to achieve sufficient economies of scale. Thus, a single firm will emerge from the competitive process as the sole seller in the market. For example, the transmission of electricity, not the production, exhibits economies of scale. Once wires are run throughout a community, the marginal cost of linking additional households to the power grid is relatively small. Consequently, the average cost declines as more and more households are wired into the system.

Hello there fellow rational minds. My name is Andrew, and let me just say I'm elated to discover ObjectivismOnline.net. I'm currently a senior in high school with plans on dual majoring in business and computer science with a minor in economics when I attend college in the fall. My father was the one who introduced me to Objectivism by giving me a copy of Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (a paperback from 1967 that still had in it a subscription card for the monthly journal "The Objectivist"). I was absolutely fascinated by the works within the book with some of my favorites being "America's Persecuted Minority: Big Business", "'Extremism,' or The Art of Smearing", and "Notes on the History of American Free Enterprise" (although I must admit every article provided me with valuable insight). I then moved onto The Fountainhead (the same copy my grandfather read in 1947) and I've pronounced myself an Objectivist ever since, and unless I experience an epiphany an Objectivist is what I will stay. I attend a private high school where a substantial majority of the students and faculty belong on the American-Left side of the political spectrum. It's so out there that, to give on example, the administration requires students to attend school during Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day where we listen to the University of Michigan's Keynote speaker who has for the past two years been, respectively, Grace Lee Boggs and Lani Guinier. Between our post-modern English classes and a school initiated diversity program it's hard for the average student not to subscribe to a Leftist ideology by osmosis. I started an online newspaper last year entitled The Discourse in an attempt to voice my philosophy to the school as a whole. I look forward to diving into serious philosophical discussions!