Monopolies are bad, Chapter Billion
By Tom Toles
July 9 at 7:00 AM
The board game Monopoly was supposedly invented as a teaching game, to show us how monopolies can be bad. Considering the commercial success of the game and our subsequent understanding of the dangers of monopolies, I’d say this game ranks right up there with the greatest failures of teaching since John Lennon sang Give Peace a Chance.
Businesses start out as competitive and work relentlessly toward monopoly market dominance. Got that? It’s not that hard to grasp. In the middle part, before they get to monopoly or near-monopoly status, the famed benefits of capitalism take place. Competition, service, price. Great for the consumer, a headache for the company.
Everyone used to chuckle when ol’ Uncle Warren Buffett would say his ideal investment would be an unregulated toll bridge. Haha! What do you think he was saying?
Businesses want to be monopolies. Works for them. The question is why on earth we let them get away with it. This has been a long struggle in American economic history, from which you may recall the name of the Sherman Antitrust Act, and not much else. We certainly have forgotten the main lesson.
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