A very common socialist claim is that the free market leads to economic monopolies, and it is the governments’ duty to protect consumers from “unreasonably” high prices set by monopolists. The purpose of this essay is to explain in simple words, why consumers should not be protected from the market, but rather from state monopolies.
Consumers must not be protected from Microsoft and Facebook, but they should be protected from public utilities, or any other state monopolies. This document follows the tradition of the great Austrian economists like Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek and Murray Rothbard. No prior knowledge of economics is required. A genuine interest on the subject will suffice.
