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… is from page 53 of the late Yale Brozen’s September 1978 paper “The Attack on Concentration,” as this paper is reprinted in Brozen (1980), Is Government the Source of Monopoly? and Other Essays [2]:
In this modern day, we are no longer subject to the kind of superstitions that led the early colonists to hang witches when they were troubled by forces they did not understand. Instead, in this enlightened age, when we seek to rid ourselves of inflation and other mysterious ailments, we pillory dominant firms or the Big Fours in concentrated, and not so concentrated, industries.
DBx: Yale Brozen was brilliant. And he here accurately describes the late 1970s casting of blame for inflation on “monopolists” as the result of a superstition no more credible as was the superstition that led our ancestors several centuries ago to cast blame for their suffering on people suspected of being witches. Alas, the ignorant superstitions of the late 1970s continue to haunt us nearly a half-century later. Especially loud promoters today of these superstitions include people who, with unintentional comedy, applaud themselves for being progressive and devoted to ‘the science.’