Monopolies are created by the state. Free markets are the anti thesis of it.
As for whether or not state enables monopolies, it's important to notice that market and governance are not, and can never be, disconnected. If you're big enough, you write your own rules.
Documentation of this stuff is fuzzy for various reasons, many properties are difficult to trace ownership of due to tax and liability concerns. One well known example would be Columbia University in New York City. They own like 25% of Morningside Heights and at least 200 properties in total.
I can see why finding who owns stuff might be difficult, but the effects should be easier to detect; do you have any examples of districts and urban areas with rising prices and very little or no growth, despite a lack of ordinances and other regulations preventing it?
[1] https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20160411/morningside-height...
Inner city rents are similar to the suburban developments and until recently higher than mortgage payments.
The top 5 landlords control 30-50% of the market and own whole blocks at various times.
Though these companies ended up getting split up.
We didn't make anti-trust laws out of the goodness of our hearts but because doing nothing created monopolies.
Instead they would opt for more classic techniques like threatening resellers by withholding access to their products.
My point is not that companies can't achieve market dominance, but that it's almost always short-lived - unless they have the power of the State propping them up. Like the multiple patents that MS got during the 90s, and which have extended until this day.
- IP rights
- Protectionism, tariffs, Quotas etc.
- Exclusive rights and laws generated by Lobbying
- Unnecessary Licenses and regulations (often with public health excuses)
- Uneven Taxation
- State ownership of production
Surely all capitalists desire to be a monopoly, but free markets is the only power to stop them.
On the actual subject, the game "Monopoly" implies Capitalism, but to me it is just a game.
Tells something about the lack of education among the US leftwingers.
And I agree that subverting the market already happens. But it's not (just) the state, but (also) every big company out there.
The government never gave them a chance to lose market share, unfortunately. Microsoft created a ton of value for people, but they were worsening their product by preventing competition on their "platform" (Windows). If it wasn't for the government preventing consumers from starting to choose their competitors, we might have more Linux-based / Apple market share right now.
In any case, no one was harmed except for the competitors who wanted to compete with Microsoft on its own platform.
Rockefeller's Standard Oil is an example of a natural monopoly that brought down the price of kerosene by over 50% over the course of his reign. There is a such thing as a natural monopoly, but not a natural, malevolent monopoly (except governments, of course, but even they can be overthrown).
That's not the point. The point is that "services rendered by MSFT" was _not_ a free market. Going against the initial thesis (that monopolies only exist due to gov't).
And to my initial point, government helped Microsoft. Their dominance might have been shorter lived otherwise.