: : You have to reply to the entire argument, otherwise we will be stting up straw men and knocking them down. I later stated that Standard Oil would have been dissolved without intervention, though a better way to frase that first statement is: Standard oil *wouldn't* have controlled the market for all eternity.: SDF: Actually Standard Oil was losing its market share by the time it was dissolved, though this was for a reason quite irrelevant to the debate about monopoly per se; at that time, in the 1910s, explorers were discovering oil faster than Standard Oil could locally undercut small oil producers and drive potential new competitors out of business. I really doubt that that sort of thing going to happen again in human history.
Maybe not that, but something like that is bound to happen to any business.
: : On the point you want to discuss: The only way for a company or anythin else to have EXCLUSIVE rights to something would be to back it with laws, something only the government can do.
: SDF: Property law will be enough, thank you.
You need exclusive rights a commodity or business to have a monopoly.
None.