[bholdr]

It's pretty clear that monopolies are one of the major problems with unrestricted capitalisim, but not all monopolies have to be bad...

there are certian industries, such as telecom, energy, defense, etc, that are 'natural monopolies'- areas where free market forces don't really encourage competition that benifits both the business and the consumer, mostly because of logistical forces and infrastructure/capital requirments... service and product improves as competition diminishes, but when the monopoly is in place, the incentive to provide good products and services disappears...

some countries try to control this through regulation, some socialist nations handle it by nationalizing those industries... neither solution is complete, as regulation is complicated and expensive, and government isn't always that efficient [/understatment].


I'd like to hear your thoughts on natural monopolies and how to handle them, natedogg.