Pre-breakup AT&T is a tangible example for people old enough to remember. AT&T shareholders certainly did well with their monopoly position, and the early days

Pre-breakup AT&T is a tangible example for people old enough to remember. AT&T shareholders certainly did well with their monopoly position, and the early days of the Bell System were certainly not public-spirited (the company directors were Yankee misers in the mold of Venderbilt, though not on as grand a scale), but eventually the Bell System became, as a regulated monopoly, not appreciably different from any other arm of government. The Bell System breakup was roughly equivalent to a privatization of a national industry ala British Rail rather than a trust-busting ala the Standard Oil breakup. There is an excellent John Books (of /The Go-Go Years/, among others) tome on the subject, published just before the breakup: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1323717.Telephone https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1323717.Telephone