It is a peculiar characteristic of US anti-trust law (Sherman Anti-Trust Act) that competition itself can be characterized as “anti-competitive”. The recent e-book price-fixing case against Apple (in which Apple was ruled against on July 10) is a prime example. The case is rather “weedy” so I will provide a pared down synopsis, however for those interested in the details please see this article for an excellent summary. Prior to Apple’s entry into the e-book market in 2010, Amazon was in a monopsony position in the wholesale e-book market and a monopoly position in the retail e-book market. No, I did not misspell “monopoly” – monopsony is a situation where a market has just one buyer (as opposed to just one seller with monopolies). In this case Amazon was the only (over 90% market share) buyer of e-books from the “Big 6” publishing houses. As such it was in a position where it could dictate the terms of sale to the publishers. Amazon sold every e-book for $9.99 and often lost money on these sales. The publishing houses were not happy with this situation as they felt Amazon’s low prices tended to devalue hardcopy books in the consumer’s mind and thereby potentially weaken their sales position further in retail book outlets (as people balked at paying high prices for print copies when e-books could be had for so much less).

In comes Apple to save the day. It’s a win-win situation for Apple and the publishing houses. Apple wants to chip away at Amazon’s dominance in the e-book market and the publishers want to have an alternate buyer for their e-book wares. So the upshot of all this? E-book prices went up, Amazon made more money (due to not losing money anymore), the publishers made less money (due to decreased sales resulting from higher prices) and Apple got a foothold into the e-book market. Unfortunately the judge ruled against Apple, citing that “depriv[ing] a monopolist of some of its market power is [not] pro-competitive” merely because some e-book prices rose after the fact. In other words, for competition to be permissible in this country it must fall into a narrow and arbitrarily subjective standard of behavior. If you enter a market and cause prices to rise too much then you are a monopolist. If you enter a market and causes prices to fall too much then you are a ‘predator’. And finally, if you enter a market and charge the same price as everyone else, then you are a cartelist.

The irony is that government should be the one prosecuting supposed anti-competitive behavior when it is government itself that is the sole source of monopolies and anti-competitive behavior. For example, this country still engages in New Deal era agricultural price controls intended to prop up prices by limiting production. Tariffs, subsidies, grants, regulations, certificates of need, insurance commissions, utility boards, public schools – all are either outright government granted monopolies or are examples of policies that have the direct effect of limiting market entrance or production and thus raising prices and stifling competition.

All “anti-trust” legislation should be abolished. Such legislation is akin to anti-witch legislation; a pointless attempt to prevent something that cannot nor did exist prior to enactment in 1890, myths of “Robber Baron” monopolies notwithstanding. Trusts, cartels, and monopolies – such things cannot exist in a free market for any appreciable length of time as long as competition is not short-circuited by arbitrary government edicts. To the extent a monopoly could exist in a free market it would be a testament to the degree to which such an entity is satisfying the preferences and demands of its consumers.

The government has spent millions of dollars prosecuting Apple over its behavior in a market for a luxury good that did not even exist 5 years ago. Perhaps it never occurred to anyone that if e-book prices were too high then people would simply stop buying them? Ultimately it is the consumer, exercising control over the purse, that dictates what will and will not succeed in the market. Government “anti-trust” witch hunts do nothing but harm the consumer by scaring off potential competitors who fear censure for not competing in precisely the manner prescribed by our wise overlords.