Monopoly control over indispensable goods removes exit-based limits on cost imposition

Evidence

However, if one of the parties does not enter the relationship voluntarily or must sustain the relationship because a highly desired good for which there is no alternative is controlled by the other person in the encounter, the nature of the interaction changes. The costs that the nonvoluntary person in the interaction will sustain become much higher. Indeed, the less voluntary the interaction, the less useful it is even to understand the interaction in terms of limits to the costs people will accept, because clients cannot easily withdraw. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 433

Categorization

• QUESTION: Where client ‘voice’ substitutes for exit missing: does client protest arise only when some minimal perceived alternative exists? This bears on how quickly administrative indifference hardens into routine.
• XREF: connects to: Market control tradeoffs dissolve once basic goods are no longer scarce — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 386; Customers exercise more protection-market choice where the monopoly is insecure; Annulling exchange comparability would yield raw force and monopoly privilege — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1559

Broader Connections

• Customers exercise more protection-market choice where the monopoly is insecure #corroborates (0.85)
• Market control tradeoffs dissolve once basic goods are no longer scarce #qualifies (0.80) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 386
• Annulling exchange comparability would yield raw force and monopoly privilege #corroborates (0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1559