A Stitch in Haste

I rarely copy other bloggers' posts wholesale, but this one from Eclectic Econoclast is just too good not to:

Anti-trust in two easy lessons:

(1) you must compete;
(2) you must not win.

Here are three more lessons to learn about anti-trust economics:

--If you charge less than everybody else, it is called unfair competition.

--If you charge more than everybody else, it is called price gouging.

--If you charge the same as everybody else, it is called collusion.

Now apply these rules to Microsoft, which has been repeatedly harassed by Eurocrat antitrust regulators:

The European Union threatened Microsoft Corp. on Friday with new fines if the software company doesn't make it easier and cheaper for competitors to see the blueprints of its server software.
...
EU antitrust regulators fined Microsoft a record 497 million euros ($665 million) when they ruled a year ago that Microsoft abusively wielded its Windows software monopoly to lock competitors out of the market. They ordered, among other things, that Microsoft share Windows server code with rivals so their products can better communicate on networks with machines that run Windows operating systems.
...
Todd said the EU could impose prohibitive fines of up to 5 percent of the company's daily global sales if it refuses to better cooperate.

People tend to think "monopoly" is a bad word -- and it is, when it derives from government fiat. That has never, not once, been the case with Microsoft. Microsoft's products won in the past because they were better, cheaper or both. If that continues to be the case, then Microsoft will continue to win; if not, then Microsoft will fall from its perch.

So clearly the Eurocrats are not motivated by the best interests of consumers (those interests are, after all, better and cheaper products, are they not?). What else might the European regulators be after (besides the threatened shakedown of 5% of Microsoft's global sales)?

Antitrust is never about protecting competition -- competition never needs "protection." Only competitors need protection, and only the intrusive, competition-destroying power of government can provide that protection. It is basic "rob Peter to pay Paul" economics. The consumer simply does not factor into the political equation.

Antitrust sacrifices not only the successful competitor, but also the consumer, for the sake of the unsuccessful competitor. And that's not just bad policy, it's monstrous policy.

Class dismissed.

Related Posts:
E.U. to Force Microsoft to Sell a Product It Doesn't Make?
More on the "Evil Mega-Corporations"