Here the law still rules, which is assuring. Power, whether political or economic, increases till it runs up against the public will, often enough expressed in a court of law. Ingenuity can create a monopoly, but not keep it. It's a familiar phenomenon, as old and as new as Henry Ford and Bill Gates, John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan. Our tycoons change the way we do things so dramatically that eventually, collectively, through government or competition or greater ingenuity, we change the way they do things.
History is an open-ended game, or at lest revising it is.
Law may not move as fast as information in this Webbed society, but it can be just as confusing, frustrating and enlightening. And probably in the American soul. There is something in an American that will not tolerate a restraint of trade, whatever that is. The smallest move, as in chess, can lead to a wholly different outcome. In some enterprises, like anti-trust law, speculation isn't just an adjunct, but the essence of the game.