By your definition, I don't think I could sneak the east india trading company as an example of a monopoly. We we speaking in a context. If we can't agree that

By your definition, I don't think I could sneak the east india trading company as an example of a monopoly. We we speaking in a context. If we can't agree that any of these industries are monopolized... If we have to start by assuming that the market dynamics of a pin factory are at play in commercial banking... IDK where to go exactly. Besides that, the other examples I gave were explicitly of non monopolies. Market dynamics like competition, creative destruction and such are not in operation. Monopoly (extreme concentration, trusts, oligopoly, monopsony, oligopsony, captive bottlenecks... do we really have to do this or can we just use "monopoly" as shorthand like normal people?) >> we have to be real about what works where, and what doesn't. We have to be real about what is a market, in the Smithian sense is, and what isn't. Military industry is not a market. There are a few big players with most of the market. One buyer. Political dynamics are many times more important than market dynamics. Same for commercial banking, pharmaceuticals etc. In 2020 it is simply trite to look to the relative efficiency of government vs private (non-market) as the lens through which everything is seen. If we have to look through that lens, lets at least look through it honestly. Private vs Public has nothing to do with market discipline because market discipline doesn't exist for most of the economy... particularly if you measure it by market cap. Monopolism (using the term widely) is just one of the reasons, but there are others. The world is complicated and commercial banking is not subject to the same dynamics as local plumbing businesses. Pretending that they are is madness. BTW, Adam Smith would have been on my side of this debate, as would have most of the old liberals. Market ideology has gone so far that people don't even need a market to apply it to.