Oddball
Unobtanium Member
Not at all.Monopolies depend upon outside aggression (most often from politicians and bureaucrats) in an otherwise free market.
I think we're in a Chicken and Egg argument here. Monopolies often form because the company that eventually forms the monopoly had the best product at the best price. They then have financial resources they can turn into political power which they use to protect their advantage. Monopolies do depend on outside factors that often they bring into the game.
There are exceptions (government mandated monopolies), but often a monopoly forms under free market competition, and perpetuates their advantage by sabotaging the Free Market the first chance they get.
That's why Free Markets are the unicorns of Finance. To have one, you have to have a mechanism to protect competition. Once you have that, it isn't a Free Market anymore. At best its a hybrid.
The freest of markets tend toward what's known as the rule of threes. That being in any free marketplace, the big players will generally winnow themselves down or merge up to three big players (i.e. McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's or Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target), with the smaller players more generally tending toward regional, local and/or niche markets.
Conversely, without gubmint granted rights-of-way and mineral rights to be bought off, people like the Rockefellers could never amassed their monopoly powers over the railroad and oil markets.