I don’t know many libertarian economists who would equate the collusion that might take place between, to continue our example, Microsoft and Dell, to that which might take place between a corporation and the government with the aim of using the power of the state to legally prevent people from competing with you.

From a libertarian point of view, there is a normative (moral) difference between the two. One is the result of individuals free choosing to do what they wish with their property. The other is the state intervening in the market.

That said, a monopoly is a monopoly, in my opinion, whether it be government, union or corporation. I just can’t see how one is okay and another is not, when they all have the same practical outcome for the individual.

I know that most economists would say that a market free of government intervention would be superior because it would result in better flow of information, but, for me at least, the goal is the end, or at least a reduction, in the intervention.

I think its a mistake to define a “free”, or unregulated, market as one where there is perfect information, which is how I think you are defining it, then you’re playing into the hands of those opposed to free markets……because a situation where there is absolutely perfect information available to all parties is, I think, simply not possible.

Throughout all of our discussions, and everything I’ve read about the case, I have yet to see any real evidence that Microsoft used government coercion to protect its monopoly. Did the fact that the Federal Government switched from Lotus to Office at some point influence the market ? No doubt it did, but that’s not coercion.

Finally, the issue of intellectual property is one that deserves a post, or two, or three, of its own. I will try to address it in the next couple days.

1. We are meaning two different things when we say free market. Your meaning is the normally accepted political definition. mine is the strict economic definition. This leads to a certain amount of difficulty when, for example, I say that a monopoly is impossible in a free market.

2. We have a fundamental disagreement on the nature of how a monopoly arises. While it is theoretically possible that a monopoly could arise in an unregulated market (for the sake of clarity, I will use that term from now on when I mean a market that is free of government intrusion) without it having acted in an anti-competitive or coercive fashion, it is exceedingly unlikely. Whether that fashion is direct, or it is to indirectly use others, including government bureaucracy and regulations. It should be pointed out that the two most well known American monopolies (that didn’t involve direct government intervention) did indirectly use the coercive and/or disruptive power of the government to their advantage. It seems to me to be inconsistent to argue that we want markets free of government intrusion and then turn around and argue that a company that achieves monopoly by, in part, taking advantage of tax money, the market distortion power of the government or coercive regulations, taxes and import/export controls is not doing anything wrong. If government intrusion in the market is bad, then using that to your advantage is bad too, isn’t it?

3. I suspect, to a certain extent, that some of the disagreement has to do with the concept of real “intellectual property” vs. legal “intellectual property”. Regardless of patents and copyrights, if I create something, I own it. If you do something with it that I didn’t say you could, whether you are legally wrong, or not, you are ethically wrong. The flip side of that is that I’m also convinced that copyright and patent law, as it exists today, has been created by a concerted effort to manipulate the government and the market by entertainment companies, led by Disney and Sony.

I know that you and I don’t disagree when it comes to fundamental princples, so I guess this debate has me perplexed on some level.

When I talk about a free market, I meam a market completely free of government internvention. From the time I started reading Milton Friedman, Hayek, and Mises, that’s the paradigm I’ve always believed that we should strive for.

On a completely theoretical level, I beleive its entirely possibile for “monopoly”, or at least a dominaant market player, to arise under a free market. If that were to happen, I would see nothing wrong with it.