> there's also little evidence of monopolies that broke down without involvement from the state That's not evidence that anti-trust laws are necessary. > mono

> there's also little evidence of monopolies that broke down without involvement from the state That's not evidence that anti-trust laws are necessary. > monopolies HAVE been broken down My premise is that those monopolies existed as a result of state involvement in the first place. You can't use the existence of anti-trust law as evidence that it's necessary. You must give evidence that monopolies which existed before anti-trust were bad for consumers. You must also show that those monopolies weren't created by other government actions (the solution in those cases would be to just reverse such government action, not anti-trust). > ridiculously hard to get into and require massive investments that only other big companies can make The capital barrier-to-entry argument is exactly what I was referring to by "mistaken economic theory". Competition doesn't just stop happening because it's expensive. You gave the solution yourself: cross-industry competition. Capital gains from one industry flow into competition in others. Only in a situation where one company controlled a majority of the industries in the economy would preventing competition would possible. And such a firm would be hugely inefficient. > free market IS rich-gets-richer territory Getting richer requires risk. Risk is often rewarded, but risk goes both ways. Also, there's no evidence that the free market is any worse in this aspect than other systems.