Monopoly and Competition

It was a revolting display to see the bureaucrats at the Justice Department cheer Federal Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's decision. Many of these people didn't even know how to get around the web twelve months ago, and now they are making decisions for millions of consumers and threatening to smash the company that democratized information. The government, driven by power-lust and fueled by the envy of Microsoft's competitors, is happy to jam a crowbar into the wheel of commerce.

Not just the Microsoft case, but the entire history of government regulation of monopoly is shot through with distortions of fact and unjust legal interventions. 

What are the economic effects of market dominance by one firm? To hear the Justice Department tell it, market dominance spells disaster

Why neoclassical economists are wrong to stop short of calling for the full repeal of antitrust. 

Frank Shostak rebuts the claim that markets are driven to unsustainable highs by waves of investor enthusiasm. Actually, the Fed itself is the real culprit.

The essential element in monopoly is forcible exclusion and forcible reservation, not the number of producers.

Judge Jackson's reasoning is fatally flawed, says Dominick T. Armentano. Microsoft has a dominant position in a narrowly defined relevant market, but no meaningful monopoly and no output restricting monopoly power. 

Judge Jackson's decision in the Microsoft case assumes that superior technology doesn't win out in market competition. Is he right?

The shoe industry is under regulatory attack,  adding to the list of businesses punished for exercising the freedom to make contracts and compete in a market economy.

The judge in the Microsoft case says the company is like Standard Oil earlier this century. He's right, for the wrong reasons.