Adam Smith's free-market economy pivots around minimal
government intervention so that markets can self-regulate and
operate optimally. Unfortunately, in many cases, such environments
allow the rise of monopolies through organic or inorganic growth.
While true monopolies are rare in a free market economy, lack of
government intervention often allows the rise of a single large
player with many minor players with limited competitive ability. In
these situations, the large firm is considered to have
“monopoly power”.
Interestingly, the genesis of competition / antitrust laws came
as a response to the rise of firms with monopoly power in the 1880s
and 1890s in America. With the principle, “if we will not
endure a king as a political power, we should not endure a king
over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the
necessaries of life”, the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890
(Sherman Act) came into force to break the dominance of various
“trusts” (i.e., large
