All Posts Tagged With: "monopoly"

Mises on Copyrights

The widespread reproduction and “sharing” of copyrighted music on the Internet led a friend to ask me what Ludwig von Mises would have thought about the situation. The more I pondered the question, the more I concluded that Mises would have considered this just another case where copyright law must play catch-up with new technology. [...]

1Jun2004 | | 2 comments | Continued

Telecom Regulations Don’t Create Competitive Markets

The author would like to thank Diane Katz, director of science, environment, and technology policy at the Mackinac Center, for her assistance in the preparation of this column. Few of us would understand the jargon employed in a recent ruling overturning telecommunications regulations issued by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). But it’s not necessary to [...]

1May2004 | | 1 comment | Continued

Airline Protectionism Hurts Travelers

In one form or another the U.S. government has regulated the domestic airline industry since 1930. The imposition of various rules and regulations has kept the industry from becoming as efficient as it might have become had it evolved in a free market. While many controls ended in 1978 and the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) [...]

1Oct2002 | | 1 comment | Continued

Antitrust After Microsoft: The Obsolescence of Antitrust in the Digital Era

What’s in a name? Even the simple title, Antitrust After Microsoft, suggests a question: Will there ever be an after Microsoft? Federal antitrust agencies have investigated and prosecuted Microsoft since 1990. The resolution of the federal suit, the focus of the author’s attention, will not lay to rest the actions it encouraged, as entities including [...]

1Oct2002 | | 0 comments | Continued

The Federal Prison Industries Empire

Imagine a company that pays its workers as little as 25 cents an hour and often charges more for its goods than any of its competitors, even though it pays no taxes or dividends. The marketplace would put such a firm out of business before it got off the ground, probably before government regulators even [...]

1Sep2002 | | 0 comments | Continued

Government and Business Are the Same?

“Let us now praise slothful, inefficient, bloated government,” reads the opening of an April 30 Washington Post essay, “When the Blue Chips Are Down, in Gov We Trust.” “Let us now rejoice in the glory of your trillions of tax dollars at work.” Why are we rejoicing? Because staff writer Paul Farhi intends to show [...]

1Sep2002 | | 0 comments | Continued

The Real Monopoly

What is a monopoly? The attorneys general of the nine states and the District of Columbia that are now engaged in their latest legal attack on Microsoft apparently have no idea. Because if they did, they would be focusing their ire not on Microsoft, but on the U.S. Postal Service, which has authorized another 3-cent [...]

1Aug2002 | | 1 comment | Continued

Mail at the Millennium: Will the Postal Service Go Private? Edited by Edward L. Hudgins

The copy of Ideas on Liberty you’re reading was most likely delivered to you by an employee of the United States Postal Service (USPS). If there were alternatives open to FEE in the distribution of its magazine, it would certainly explore them to see if costs could be reduced—but there are no alternatives. Thanks to [...]

1Nov2001 | | 0 comments | Continued

The Post Office as a Violation of Constitutional Rights

In September 2000, the United States Postal Service (USPS) launched a $12 million campaign to advertise a new Internet service, eBillPay, through which customers could pay their bills electronically. EBillPay is one of several new e-services designed to woo back the growing army of Americans who would rather click a mouse than lick a stamp [...]

1May2001 | | 3 comments | Continued

Monopolies in America: Empire Builders and Their Enemies from Jay Gould to Bill Gates by Charles R. Geisst

Oxford University Press • 2000 • 355 pages • $30.00 The current Microsoft court case, hotly debated and full of economic implications, makes a historical study of monopolies and antitrust law very relevant. Unfortunately, business historian Charles Geisst’s Monopolies in America is incomplete and one-sided, mostly reiterating the traditional statist interpretation of big business and [...]

1Apr2001 | | 0 comments | Continued

The Irresistible Force of Market Competition

This is the third in a series of articles laying out some foundational elements of modern Austrian economics. The first article is here, the second is here, and the final article is here. The systematic character of the market process derives, in the Austrian view, from the interplay of the actions of entrepreneurial human beings. [...]

1Mar2000 | | 6 comments | Continued

Hands Off

A Microsoft study from November 1997 reveals that the company could have charged $49 for an upgrade to Windows 98—there is no reason to believe that the $49 price would have been unprofitable—but the study identifies $89 as the revenue-maximizing price. Microsoft thus opted for the higher price. Thus wrote U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield [...]

1Feb2000 | | 0 comments | Continued

Myths of Rich and Poor: Why We’re Better Off Than We Think by W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm

Basic Books • 1999 • 256 pages + xvi • $25.00 I vividly recall a 1972 visit to the Sears store in our local mall. I was 14 years old and had never before seen an electronic calculator. But there at Sears, for the first time in my life, was this wonder to behold! Three [...]

1Jan2000 | | 0 comments | Continued

The Immorality of Antitrust Law

D. T. Armentano is professor emeritus in economics at the University of Hartford and the author of Antitrust: The Case for Repeal (Mises Institute, 1999). The economic inefficiencies associated with antitrust law enforcement are now generally acknowledged. The regulation of mergers and acquisitions hampers the efficient reallocation of corporate assets. The antitrust regulation of product [...]

1Aug1999 | | 8 comments | Continued

The Bully that Acts Like a Hero

Harold Jones teaches at Mercer University’s Eugene W. Stetson School of Business and Economics in Macon, Georgia. In 1995 President Clinton established what he called “Operation Restore Trust,” a Health and Human Services initiative aimed at wiping out fraud and abuse in the health-care industry. According to the administration, only terrorism surpassed health-care fraud as [...]

1Mar1999 | | 0 comments | Continued

Small Is Awesome

Max More is president of Extropy Institute in Marina Del Rey, California. Giant corporations controlling national governments. Corporate behemoths regimenting their workers, controlling their customers, and obliterating their smaller competitors. The rich get richer and the large get larger until a small handful of megacorporations rule the planet. We have heard this warning about King [...]

1Feb1999 | | 0 comments | Continued

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow

Random House • 1998 • 774 pages • $30.00 D. T. Armentano, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Hartford, is the author of Antitrust and Monopoly: Anatomy of a Policy Failure. For me, this is the image that sticks: John D. Rockefeller, president of Standard Oil, age 57, in bicycle suit and goggles, [...]

1Jan1999 | | 0 comments | Continued
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