https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/04/dom-armentano/antitrust-policy-in-a-free-society/

Antitrust Policy in a Free Society

By Dom Armentano

The primary concern of political economy is the appropriate role of government in social affairs. The debate, in brief, is whether the economy should be left free to establish a “spontaneous order,” or whether government regulation is necessary to maintain efficiency and economic welfare. Some liberals, most conservatives, and all libertarians would argue that government regulation of industry generally tends to reduce efficiency and economic growth and should be avoided. Since the late 1950s, and at an accelerated pace since the 1970s, free market economists and others have repeatedly argued that many governmental policies are unworkable, and that these policies often tend to achieve results that are the opposite of those intended. Indeed, theoretical and empirical criticisms of government regulation in industries such as transportation, telecommunications, and banking have been the primary rationale to deregulate these markets, and to allow free competition to determine the allocation of scarce resources. ...

... Government as the Source of Monopoly

None of the discussion above is meant to infer that there is (or was) an absence of abusive “monopoly” in the American economy. Far from it. Indeed, while the government trustbusters were indicting—and the courts were convicting—firms engaged in rivalrous market activity, the government itself was creating and protecting business monopolies throughout the economy. Interestingly, such monopolies were all but immune from antitrust.

The theory of market monopoly (reviewed earlier) fails because free markets are open to rivalry and competition. But if government legally restricts entry and competition (as was the case in the trucking industry between 1935 and 1980) then it creates “monopoly power” for the business organizations protected from competition. Government licensing, certificates of public convenience, quotas (both foreign and domestic), legal franchises, and other legal barriers are the essence of resource misallocating monopoly. The firms protected from competition enjoy the advantages of legal monopoly, and the customers and shut-out suppliers are “injured” by this monopoly. ......

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