Thanks for the article, Celine. I agree with the author that the "New Economy" doesn't constitute an exception to antitrust policy. But that just means I think nothing should be subject to antitrust law, and he thinks everything should.
For the benefit of those attending the Chat tomorrow (I don't think I will be), I offer my own summary of the results of the discussion of monopoly 2 weeks ago. (Participants can issue their own additions, corrections, or denials.) Celine was concerned about the potential power of economic monopolies (as distinguished from political, or legally enforced, monopolies, like the Post Office or national defense). The rest of us challenged her to offer an example where such a monopoly had been able to engage in the practices she feared. She replied that that was impossible since antitrust regulations had prevented the emergence of such a monopoly. None of us had enough detailed knowledge of economic history before the 1880s to make a case one way or the other, so I declared an impasse. It's not obvious to me, in fact, where the discussion might go without new material. I offer just one (theoretical) observation that wasn't made in that discussion: It is not often appreciated that antitrust legislation is promonopoly in practice. If Boeing, for example, were left as the only producer of large jet aircraft, and decided therefore to engage in "monopoly pricing," that would be an invitation for large firms like General Motors to enter the field, since they are the only ones with sufficient capital to start up such a business. But it is precisely such "neighboring" firms who would be prohibited from doing that by antitrust legislation. Antitrust laws, like many others, thus serve to protect existing businesses.