Absent the political temptation (using the state to "regulate away" the competition), businesses have no choice but to appeal to their consumers with better services.
edit: And I mean that's not getting into any of the ones that are currently illegal due to regulation. Ever heard of trusts?
Yes, my grandparents had one.
Oh, you were refering to the subject of "anti-trust".
Name three bad monopolies that didn't depend on govt power for their monopoly status.
The question is, is this a problem with "government" or a problem with "bribery".
It depends. Do you think that we should treat orphans who kill their parents different from other orphans?
Standard Oil
How long did the "monopoly" last? Were consumers injured by it?
> Standard Oil
Standard Oil was huge because they were cheaper than the competition. Kind of like how Wal-Mart did it. Is that a bad thing?
But thanks to some really good marketing, people continue to pay a premium for the "real" thing.
And I'm not sure how far your definition of "textbook monopoly" stretches, but the concept of "antitrust" covers not just monopolies, but cartels and cartel-like activity (like secret price-fixing agreements). OPEC is an example of cartel that has been successful in keeping prices artificially high for probably a majority of its existence.
Long distance prices dropped when the long distance monopoly ended, not when AT&T was broken up.
That monopoly was a creature of law.
1) Businesses will act in their economic self-interest to capture regulations/regulators. This is done to leverage the power of the state for themselves.
2) This capture is a bad thing, presumably due to net harm it causes to other business/customers/individuals/freedom.
3) Absent regulation businesses will not be able to (or be less able to) bend the power of the state to their own economic interests and will have to use other tactics.
4) Those other tactics are less harmful (or more beneficial?) than the effects of regulatory capture, to the degree that they overwhelm any good lost from removing regulations.
Does that roughly capture it? If so, is there evidence to support point four somewhere?
But it takes a good understanding of the way the market works and the way economics work, and certainly if you just slather regulation all over the system willy-nilly the most likely outcome is regulatory capture. This is what usually happens. Neither the right nor the left is very good at this sort of regulation at all.