The reason monopoly is bad in the eyes of libertarians, is because it is inherently coercive -- we as consumers don't have other options, so even if the monopolist is a "good" one, he's still holding all the cards, and we have no choice but to either buy his stuff at his price, or go pound sand.
Competition empowers consumers by giving us choices and thus power, pitting the businesses against each other to our benefit.
Businesses hate that, so they constantly look for ways to "control" competition -- usually using government mandated cartel practices, subverting government oversight agencies, or by illegal price fixing, illegal anti-competitive agreements, etc.
A free market works when it channels greed into socially positive outcomes. Greed doesn't like being channeled and will happily corrupt the government in order to free itself from the hard boundaries of the free market.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment