Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… is from page 153 of Deirdre McCloskey’s splendid 2022 volume, Beyond Positivism, Behaviorism, and Neoinstitutionalism in Economics:

The master and permanent monopoly – because armed, and hired by the monopolists – is the very government called on to attack the private and temporary monopolies – who are “armed” only metaphorically with attractive offers to consumers such as the iPhone.

DBx: Yep.

Anyone today who believes that antitrust is necessary, or even useful, to protect consumers from monopolists is ignorant of economic history or of the history of antitrust’s origins and enforcement – or, most likely, ignorant of both.