> Absolutely not. When steel and oil were "monopolies", did people pay > $500,000 > per ingot or barrel? Companies are always restricted by the marketplace > unless > they have government protection. Even a monopoly cannot charge infinite > prices > because there are always alternatives at hand.
True, but even in the intro to economics class at business school, it's demonstrated that, in a monopoly market, the price and quantity produced are based entirely on the monopolist's ability to maximize price as a price setter. Without effective competition, utility is not maximized on the demand-side. This is an inefficiency. You can easily see this demonstrated in recent history with the Bell System. > I'm not suggesting no law at all. I'm suggesting no laws that violate > human > rights. If somebody wants to sell their service, and somebody else wants > to > pay for it, prohibition should be out of the question. Basic human > dignity, > which somehow gets lost in the abstract utopian rhetoric. The problem I see here is externalities. If the costs of externalities were baked into every transaction, this would be true. All too often, it's not. -- Rhett. http://www.weatherlight.com/greentime http://www.weatherlight.com/freetime
