Regulatory capture is the least of the anti-competitive forces running around your typical market. Network effects, two sided markets, vertical and horizontal i

Regulatory capture is the least of the anti-competitive forces running around your typical market. Network effects, two sided markets, vertical and horizontal integration, brand loyalty, M&A, economies of scale, and even the structure of property ownership itself can have major anticompetitive effects. Yes, regulatory capture belongs on the list too -- but as a bit player, not as the prime evil. Some of these forces are things we want to encourage (economies of scale), some of them we probably have to allow, and some of them are pure emergent evil that we have "collectively" decided not to mitigate. Deregulation only address one of these forces. It's not a useless idea, but it gets wildly over-promoted by people who A. can't bring themselves to admit that the free market would ever create emergent bad incentives on its own or B. don't want the government to stop them from exploiting said bad incentives.