Tweet [1]
… is from page 153 of Deirdre McCloskey’s splendid 2022 volume, Beyond Positivism, Behaviorism, and Neoinstitutionalism in Economics [2]:
The master and permanent monopoly – because armed, and hired by the monopolists – is the very government called on to attack the private and temporary monopolies – who are “armed” only metaphorically with attractive offers to consumers such as the iPhone.
DBx: Yep.
Anyone today who believes that antitrust is necessary, or even useful, to protect consumers from monopolists is ignorant of economic history or of the history of antitrust’s origins and enforcement – or, most likely, ignorant of both.