continued…

This is why a person is not automatically a swine if engaged in business activity or a saint if working for the government.  Tell your liberal friends.  This is also why a person is not automatically a bureaucratic bastard if working for the government or a great person if engaged in business activity.  Tell your conservative friends.
 
Historically, almost every industry that eventually had its free market productive efforts and activities brought under state intervention was initiated by various groups and individuals within the industry itself.
 
Suppose you’re on a baseball team.  Before the game you take the referees aside and say, “Hey that team we’re supposed to play this afternoon is really, really good.  Why don’t you let our team call the game in order to…ummmm…how can I say it?  Give us a ‘fair chance’ to win.  Yeah that’s it.  A ‘fair chance.’  That’s what we’ll call it.”  Now supposing the other team really is much better than your team, is that really fair to let one team referee the game?  Is it truly just?  Of course not.  However, this is how, since the 1890’s Sherman Act, some business men (i.e. second-handed whiners) have approached some government officials and over 100 years later we still have the US Department of Justice involved in Anti-Trust Lawsuits.
 
Here are some interesting facts about Anti-Trust Laws.
 
If you set your prices lower than your industry competitors you are violating the law and can be charged with trying to ‘corner the market’ and establish a monopoly.  If you set your prices at the same exact price as your industry competitors you are violating the law and can be charged with ‘price fixing’ also called collusion.  If you set your prices above your industry competitors you are violating the law and can be charged with ‘price gouging’ otherwise known as ‘being a greedy bastard’.  If you don’t have any direct industry competitors you are most certainly on your way to jail because…you have no competitors.  If you are engaged in business activity in the United States you are violating the law.  I am not making this up or exaggerating; go read the non-objective law for yourself if you do not believe this.  Obviously the logistics of implementing these laws make them impossible to actually practice.  So, the government (usually) only uses them when a company gets “too big” or too many competitors “complain about the way Company XYZ is behaving”.  Who decides how big is “too big” or if Company XYZ is “behaving badly”?  Whoever has enough political clout decides.
 
Please keep in mind I am not talking about companies that lie, cheat, swindle and steal like bank-robbers.  Those companies are brought up on charges of…lying, cheating, swindling and stealing.  Good old-fashioned vices those (otherwise known as actual violations of individual rights that should properly be against the law and brought up on criminal charges by the government).  I am talking about companies that were somehow deemed “dangerous to the competitive environment” or “disruptive to the economic landscape”.  This, in reality, means “very successful in the free market place” and “more successful than the companies that are behind pushing the government to move forward with an Anti-Trust suit.”