Quote:Standard oil exploited bad state regulations and used wealth to influence and manipulate legislative advantages over competition. They didn't thrive because of a lack of rules and regulations they thrived because they figured out how to manipulate the rules with a board of trustees.


Don't get me wrong I don't advocate anarchy, of course some regulations are necessary to guide a free market. But TAM is arguing that regulations prevent a consolidation of power when in reality regulations are more often used to consolidate power.

 

Name the regulations that directly or indirectly result in monopoly or oligopoly.  I'm honestly curious as to which onese resulted in Walmart and Target.  Which regulations resulted in Comcast.  Which regulations resulted in Cardinal Health?  

 

Or...  Is it possible, in a free market without regulations, the natural trend is for companies to try and gain as much market share as possible.  So when one business begins to find success they either try to push out the competition or buy them out.  It's basic econ101, you guys.

 

As DF points out, it's very easy to find the regulations that directly break up monopolies...  Sherman Anti-trust... It's not very easy to find regulations that result in monopolies.  Now...  There is such a thing as entry into a market becoming more difficult.  But generally speaking, laws or regulations can reduce those barriers of entry.  Gov. subsidies can also help.  

 

But anyways, I'd like to know what the anti-regulation folks think would be the regulations that need to be dropped in order to break up these oligopolies.

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