Re: Common carriers Re: A letter to Joe

Jeff Bone (jbone@activerse.com)
Tue, 19 May 1998 10:06:59 -0500


> A lot of libertarians seem to have a blind spot in this general
> vicinity...

Ah, a sane voice in the crowd! How refreshing, I thought we'd *all* (me
included) lost it! Yeah, that's the thing that, if anything, keeps me
from declaring myself to be a party-line libertarian. Antitrust in
general is a real-world thorn in the side of academic libertarian
theory. It's one thing to say, on the basis of abstract principles,
that if a monopoly forms and eventually gobbles up a whole market, or
even multiple markets, well hey --- that's the free market at work,
c'est la vie. That's what most of the "academic" libertarians I know
would say. It's another thing entirely to have to confront that
situation in the real world. I *do not* believe that Microsoft is the
Evil Empire and that our taxpayers need to fund some withchunt, but if
there is the possibility of things becoming dangerously imbalanced
through actions anticompetitive practices that are illegal, then dammit,
yes, I support taking the issue to court. That's what the laws are for,
that's what the court is for.

jb