Debate: Health Care Should Be Free
Side: Pay to Live

Your link mentions "standard oil" which was never a monopoly, even under the federal standards. It had no less than 150 competitors in the oil market and had driven prices down for the consumer by the time it was broken up.There is a difference between "illegal" and "harmful".Coercive monopolies are destructive, but have never existed without government help.Non coercive monopolies are beneficial to the consumer, in that they supply the consumer with demanded goods at the lowest market price possible.(from another, related debate)Non coercive monopolies are benign. International Harvester (government assisted monopoly)"Thus, in creating the Federal Farm Board, the precursor of New Deal schemes to prop up farm prices, Hoover appointed leading farm group representatives to the board, and named Alexander Legge, head of International Harvester, as its chairman. To Burner this was an anomaly, and he writes in some wonderment of the altruism Legge displayed in his new job: "Although he was an important businessman, Legge's sympathy lay with the farmers," and he pushed aggressively for farm price supports. The fact that International Harvester was the country's largest manufacturer of farm machinery and therefore benefited from these supports does not seem to register with Burner."source: http://mises.org/daily/4498/American Tobacco"The American Tobacco holding company was broken up by the Supreme Court because of some vague intent to monopolize (again, as evidenced through mergers) but, like Standard Oil, there was a total absence of demonstrable (economic) injury to consumers of tobacco products."source: http://mises.org/daily/2694#4bStandard Oil" It never achieved a monopoly (in 1911, the year of the Supreme Court decision, Standard Oil had roughly 150 competitors, including Texaco and Gulf) that would enable it to monopolistically boost consumer prices."source: http://mises.org/daily/5274U.S. Steel"The federal government attempted to use federal antitrust laws to break up U.S. Steel in 1911, but that effort ultimately failed. Time and competitors have, however, accomplished nearly the same thing. In its first full year of operation, U.S. Steel made 67 percent of all the steel produced in the United States. It now produces less than 10 percent."source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._SteelThis last, is supporting evidence that the market does not favor "monopolies".Some of the individuals mentioned in the ehow article lowered prices for consumers, fighting against government subsidized competitors who wished to keep prices high. These competitors tried to pass legislation to that effect, reducing competition in the market, and increasing prices to the end consumer ( and increasing their own profits, at consumer expense)The attempt to reduce or to eliminate predatory pricing is also likely to reduce or eliminate competitive pricing beneficial to consumers. — Harold DemsetzAny attempt to monopolistically control prices invites competitors into the market to undercut those prices. Additionally each good on the market must also compete with all similar goods, and indeed all other goods, for the consumers' money.