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Yes, exactly. The former are incredibly rare, and the latter are common as muck.

For all the pearl-clutching that goes on about monopolies, you'd think people would twig onto the risks in letting the size of the government grow to such a point where granting favoured friends monopolies is not only possible, but simple to do.

Actual monopolies in real fields are very rare and very fleeting due to competition in the same product lines or substitutes. A monopoly is very difficult to hold without the use of force, and governments are the only legalised users of force.

It is usually a waste of resources to try and break up what are seen as 'monopolies'.




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