- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Reading a long post...

Posted by: Samuel Day Fassbinder ( Citizens for Mustard Greens ) on March 29, 1999 at 15:49:33:

In Reply to: anti trust fallacies posted by Gee on March 23, 1999 at 13:50:45:

Uh, Gee, I finally got around to looking at this, and it appears to be a bunch of name calling. I read up on Standard Oil -- quoting a few selected "folks back then" on anti-trust legislation to support one's opinion hardly counts an objective method of inquiry.

Obviously, right-thinking libertarian economists are against anti-trust legislation, whereas evil, socialist business losers like anti-trust because it uses that big daddy government to bail them out (when monopolies were about to price them out of business -- LOL!) And it's another thing to claim that Standard Oil's monopoly created lower prices -- yeah, when they were pricing competitors out of business...

This appears to be on the level of claims that government "overspending" during the period 1929-1932 -- when the actual level of such spending during that period was hardly a drop in the bucket when compared to the demand for government assistance during such a period, as it was characterized by widespread business failure, 25% unemployment, bread lines, and charities stretched to the limit. Analogously, we might argue that the government should give a starving man no food, as a criticism of current policies granting the same man an insufficient diet.

An objective inquiry into monopolies would examine all opposing sides of the monopoly issue -- proposing hard-core libertarian gospel as the unquestioned truth without examination of non-libertarian sources is hardly the way to appear "objective"...


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