Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
It should be noted, however, that being a monopoly is not illegal. What is illegal is abusing a monopoly position to disadvantage either customers or suppliers. It's absolutely fine to be a monopoly and conduct business fairly.
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Yes, that is correct, Harry, in textbooks but not in the view of the Department of Justice generally. The real-world take on monopoly is that monopoly is bad. A good example is the breakup of AT&T when it provided nearly all of the telephone service in the United States. Everyone agreed that the service was good, and pricing was set by government agencies. The compelled breakup occurred because there was a shift in thinking regarding monopolization: it went from a good monopoly is OK to monopoly is inherently bad.