… is from page 72 of the 2nd edition (2012) of Susan Dudley’s and Jerry Brito’s excellent monograph, Regulation: A Primer:
The move toward deregulation was driven in part by a large body of literature showing that regulation did not serve the public interest…. Many markets once thought of as “natural monopolies” have proved quite competitive.
DBx: Indeed.
Human beings are creative and innovative when prompted by the lure of personal profit and disciplined by the prospect of personal loss. And ideas that will never occur in a million years to 99.9 percent of the population will often occur to this person and that individual. Other creative ideas will each occur to small numbers of different individuals. The fact that some economic theorist, government bureaucrat, or judge cannot see how competition might arise in a particular market is too often taken to be proof that such competition is impossible. But when people are free, such proofs are often overturned.
