The alleged purpose of the Antitrust laws was to protect competition; that
purpose was based on the socialistic fallacy that a free, unregulated market
will inevitably lead to the establishment of coercive monopolies. But, in fact,
no coercive monopoly has ever been or ever can be established by means of free
trade on a free market. Every coercive monopoly was created by government
intervention into the economy: by special privileges, such as franchises or
subsidies, which closed the entry of competitors into a given field, by
legislative action. (For a full demonstration of this fact, I refer you to the
works of the best economists.) The Antitrust laws were the classic example of a
moral inversion prevalent in the history of capitalism: an example of the
victims, the businessmen, taking the blame for the evils caused by the
government, and the government using its own guilt as a justification for
acquiring wider powers, on the pretext of “correcting” the evils.
“Free competition enforced by law” is a grotesque contradiction in terms.