Antitrust: Is there really a point?

[peritonlogon]

Like I said before, reread the ENTIRE thread, and what I wrote. One out of context quote only shows a desire not to understand what I said. What I wrote in that post was that business can't function without government nor government without business, when government doesn't perform its function correctly bad things happen. I also wrote, that it doesn't really make sense to blame either a business or a government for (most) monopolies since the collusion of business and government includes 2 parties colluding. I don't think there is one single way that a monopoly can be formed, government could collude against its citizens through inaction or by tilting the playing field, either way its collusion, not just government being an evil entity.

But, since you wanted one, here is an example where one company had a monopoly for a hundred years or so: Debeers Diamonds. They inflated prices hundreds of times what the things are actually worth. They controlled diamond mines accross the globe until a really big one was found in Canada a few years ago. It can't really be said that governments formed this monopoly since, while Debeers of course had do deal with multiple governments, it was Debeers' coercion of governments, not governments' coercion of people that allowed the global monopoly to exist for so long.