Re: Antimonopoly is Anti-Capitalist?

["John N. Bryan" <jnelson@bga.com>]

  At 9:40 PM -0600 11/19/97, John Robert BEHRMAN wrote:
  >Huh?
  >
  >The last great anti-trust legislation was co-sponsored by Will Clayton,
  >co-founder of the Anderson-Clayton cotton brokerage. This was one of the first
  >American corporations to become international in the scale of its operations.
  >The company was rooted in cotton exchanges, commodity trading operations
  >commonly found in major Southern cities. It was able to go overseas when
  >common
  >carriage laws in Texas made cotton farmers and merchants something other than
  >sharecroppers for railroad monopolies and stevedoring or riverboat
  >concession-holders. Also, there were overseas cables and telex machines.
  >Electronic commerce is about a century old.
  >
  
  Yikes!  I hope it was not my choice of words that has stirred this
  further.  Just in case, though...
  
  
  When I responded to :
  
  > >>I still think there is time for public market forces to foster a
  > >>groundswell of support for
  > >>a competitive product without having to resort to draconian govt. enforced
  > >>anti-capitalist
  > >>measures, like the socialist 'anti dog-eat-dog' bill supported by
  > >>competitors to a trans-
  > >>continental railroad in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged".
  
  
  With :
  
  > >So far as "enforced anti-capitalist measures" are concerned, yes,
  > >they are in effect anti-capitalist.  Like other dynamic forces,
  > >capitalism can be directed and at times curbed to prevent it
  > >going out of control.  I don't think the DOJ has reacted none too
  > >capriciously in this case.  Quite the contrary, I think they have
  > >by in large been too conservative where Microsoft's business
  > >practices are concerned.  I am reminded of a nuclear power plant.
  > >You have a sustained nuclear fission reaction going, a very poerful
  > >force, and it is kept from going out of control by certain systems,
  > >(coolant, control rods, etc.).  Without the existence of some
  > >admittedly anti-capitalist bounds, it might be possible to have
  > >a capitalistic Chernobyl on our hands.  The damage from such
  > >an end is far worse than the "damage" to business, the economy,
  > >and Capitalism caused by the the anti-capitalist measures.
  
  
  I did not mean that Anti-Trust is Anti-Capitalist, that the two
  are sort of mutually exclusive.  I wanted to say that, yes, in a
  way anti-trust is anti-capitalist in that it can be used to curb
  the development and expansion of monopolies, which might be said
  to be possible results of free, otherwise unfettered capitalism,
  and that the two could then be viewed as opposing each other in
  that way, and in that sense then anything that curbs or limits
  one thing can be said to be "anti" that thing.  I also wanted to
  convey that I considered them both necessary for the health of
  the overall system.
  
  -John B
  
  --
  "You are not free because you CAN choose, only if you DO choose."
  "Everything you are is the decisions you make. If you allow circumstances
  to make them for you, then what you are becomes very easy to estimate."
  --