I am guilty. I did it. I conspired. I planned on starting a business and becoming the dominant business in my industry. Now some might say that I have failed at my attempts, but New York is currently considering a bill that would make it illegal – a felony - to “conspire with any other persons to monopolize any business…” This is of course a ridiculous idea, but it is something that is being taken seriously in New York.
The fact is that as an entrepreneur dominating an industry is the only thing that you think about. Sure, most business pitches include some business forecast that has a goal of 1-5% market share, but deep in their hearts – all entrepreneurs want to rule the world – or at least their niche. That is the reason that we put our personal lives at risk, our financial lives at risk, and even our health at risk – we want to build the biggest bad-est business in the world. If an entrepreneur says anything different and wants you to invest in their company run, run as far as you can. Business is war – and in war you want the person ready to conquer the world – not hide in the corner.
Currently, New York is the home to 10% of the Fortune 500 – that means that they have a lot of people that not only like engaging in the war of business, but they are good at it. However, New York is getting ready to make many of their tactics and plans – or just talking about it illegal. In any other year it would almost be laughable, but after 4 years of President Trump attacking big businesses from Washington DC with a focus on big tech and many republicans across the country joining his populist crusades, and the Democrats now in power in Washington DC the odds of this passing something like this in New York are much higher.
The New York proposal is called the "Twenty-First Century Anti-Trust Act". There are a lot of bad proposals in the bill, but one of the most instructive is that as a part of the bill Unions are exempted from any of the provisions. That means that this isn’t really a serious political stand against monopolies, but a messaging soap-box to attack big business.
Unions run like businesses. They need members, and the more members/clients they have the better their business is. If the Democrats in New York were truly against big business – if they were against monopolies – a provision exempting unions wouldn’t exist.
The thing about monopolies is that without government intervention they are hard if not impossible to create. One of the closest that we have ever seen was from Rockefeller with Standard Oil, but even he did not achieve a monopoly, and the closer he got to achieving his goal – the cozier he got with the politicians in an attempt to craft rules to make harder for others to follow his act.
We have big businesses in the US. We have Amazon, Google, Walmart, Facebook and Apple. But, none of them are a monopoly. Most of use Amazon, but the products that we purchase are often from independent sellers using the platform, and the majority of shopping is still in person (ie. Not Amazon). Facebook has been attacked for having a monopoly online – but they are only ever a bad update away from being left as a footnote of the history of the internet.
In other words, the biggest businesses that we have today – either have been granted a monopoly by government, or are fighting tooth and nail every day to maintain their market advantage. If someone develops a better algorithm than Google – the change will happen almost overnight. The only thing that would need to change is a few clicks to change your browser homepage. And, while in the moment – as you have several browser tabs open to Amazon on your Android phone – this might be hard to believe just think back to effect and marketshare of Myspace. They disappeared almost overnight. Or, think back to the power of Walmart and the lobbying that would happen to fight off Walmart for providing economical prices for things that people need – but have now been shown by Amazon that there is an even better way.
Business is war, and if New York wants business owners to put away their goals and ambitions – we will be left with the big businesses that we have now – and nobody else will ever be able to compete with them. While my first ideas – of world business domination might have failed – I shouldn’t be a felon just for having dreams and pursuing them.
Charles Sauer (@CharlesSauer) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is the president of the Market Institute and previously worked on Capitol Hill, for a governor, and for an academic think tank.
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