I've yet to find a single instance of a coercive monopoly in history that wasn't enforced by a mechanism akin to royal patents. It doesn't help that much of th

I've yet to find a single instance of a coercive monopoly in history that wasn't enforced by a mechanism akin to royal patents. It doesn't help that much of the written record on which belief in the existence of coercive monopolies was based came from the Hearst newspapers - which were a sort of monopoly ( or at least a rather large amalgamation ).