[mschuster91]

> Can a town support four competing grain elevators? Parts of the food chain are operated by agricultural cooperatives, owned by farmers, to get around such physical bottlenecks.

Yeah, but that's what solid antitrust policies, audits and enforcement are for - at least in theory. Someone has to play police after all, to make sure that everyone can reasonably participate in any truly free market. The problem is that most anti-trust legislation is more aimed at large, nation-scale corporations and even there, enforcement is lacking, but small, regional monopolies/monopsonies or other threats to a free marked are a complete Darwinist world.

[telotortium]

Antitrust isn't a panacea. Sometimes you have to deal with the fact that certain companies are natural monopolies or monopsonies.

[Animats]

Yes. Hence regulated public utilities, public roads, and railroad regulation.