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Trustbusters are Thoughtbusters
Dear Editor,
Re: "Top U.S. Trustbuster Busy" -- by R. Wilke and Bryan Gruley -- May
15 -- The Globe and Mail (ROB)
Your extensive coverage of the U.S. antitrust laws now being used to destroy Microsoft
(and to block mergers of other companies) have failed to identify the essential nature
of these so-called competition laws. Their defenders claim that they protect consumers
by preserving competition.
Totally Wrong! Other laws already exist under free enterprise to protect consumers
and competitors from physical coercion, theft (including patent laws) and fraud without
the need of antitrust laws. What the vague, elastic and contradictory antitrust laws
do is give government omnipotent power to annul property rights and attack any company
that achieves higher market share than its competitors -- the trustbusters' criteria
for "crime." But the only way to legally achieve higher market share under
free enterprise, where all transactions are voluntary, is to perform brilliantly
in terms creativity, productive efficiency and effective marketing. (There are competitors
and investors always ready to enter the market when a successful competitor tries
to exploit its high market share by "gouging" consumers.)
To make earned success a crime necessarily makes ambition, creative thinking, ability
and performance a crime. Criminalizing such virtues in the name of protecting consumers
is intellectually and morally obscene.
Sincerely,
Glenn Woiceshyn
© 1998 Glenn Woiceshyn.
All rights reserved. This article can be found on-line at at http://www.capitalism.org/glennw. |
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