As far as China is concerned, the monopoly of public enterprises has its unreasonable reasons. [2] Culturally, China has an economic tradition of "official camp" as a special economy. From the "salt and iron official camp" in the Han Dynasty to the "Westernization Movement" in the Qing Dynasty, all of them have the color of monopoly of official camp. In the planned economy era after 1949, public ownership of means of production was realized through state power, and many industries were monopolized by the state. This monopoly achieved through revolution rather than competition does not represent the inevitable logic of market economy. The national plan represents the national will and has certain legal effect. Under this institutional arrangement, there can be no anti-monopoly law, and it can only obey the will of the state. It can be seen that the theory of natural monopoly cannot be the defense reason for the monopoly of public enterprises in China. 1. The performance of the industry market is sluggish.
Due to the lack of competition, the resource allocation efficiency of natural monopoly industries where public enterprises are located in China is directly and negatively affected, and the profit rate of industries or enterprises is low or unreasonable, and the price cannot correctly reflect the relationship between market supply and demand. In order to maintain reproduction or ensure development, public enterprises often shift their burden to users and consumers by virtue of their monopoly position, and the social utility of the industry is greatly reduced. For example, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications-China Telecom will allocate the construction cost to users at one time. In the 1990s, the cost of telephone installation in many cities rose to 4000-5000 yuan, so the investment in expanding telephone capacity was largely transferred to consumers. Due to the low competitive pressure, such a high initial installation fee was charged, but the service quality of the telecommunications bureau did not change much. From the perspective of industrial organization and internal performance of enterprises, there is a common phenomenon of high consumption, low efficiency and inefficient operation of state-owned assets in natural monopoly industries in China.
2. The market structure in the industry is unreasonable, and the operation of public enterprises is backward.
Without market rules, China's public enterprises are directly controlled by the government, which is a special enterprise with a high degree of integration of government and enterprise, and has a dual legal status of combining market operation with industry management. Because they have administrative monopoly power within a certain range, they are actually government monopoly enterprises. American economist Stie Grize once pointed out that government enterprises don't have to care about bankruptcy and usually don't have to consider competition. As a bureaucrat who manages public enterprises, his biggest goal is to maximize institutions, not to optimize operational efficiency. Coupled with the incomplete and asymmetric information, it leads to the inefficiency of public enterprises. [4]