Do you agree with the Financial Times of London?

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https://registration.ft.com/registration/barrier?referer=http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/2/14/85118/0947&location=http%3A//news.ft.com/cms/s/b8454d88-9cc2-11da-8762-0000779e2340.html

[opebo]

Radically so.  The first thing you notice when you return to the US from abroad is how utterly homogenous it is, and how little choice there is.

[J-Mann]

I agree in part.  Not a bad op-ed; I particularly liked the last paragraph:

Outright monopoly is absolutely defensible – when granted temporarily to reward companies for bringing truly new ideas to market. But most of today’s powerful companies are not the result of new ideas, only the strategic reordering of markets. If anything, their goal is the oldest one in commerce – to fence in the place where deals are done, and to tax producers and consumers for the right to meet there.

But I suppose I only agree in part because, after all, this is the goal of business -- to be the reigning champion; to be on top, and you stay on the top by eliminating the competition.  It's a harsh reality, but reality all the same.  I'm generally fine with "big business" so long as they play by a few simple rules; it's when they become so entrenched that they become worrisome.

A note: the telecom industry is one arena where there are fewer and fewer competitors.  Sprint and Nextel are together, as is AT&T and SBC as well as MCI and Verizon.  Six big names reduced to three in the span of a year, with less choice for consumers.  There are benefits to mergers for consumers also, but I generally like the idea of choice.

Anyone think Google is up to become the 21st century's first big monopoly?  The potential for unwanted surveillance through the Google Desktop application is rather frightening.

Also, one final note for clarification: the link posted by Jfern is an op-ed by Barry Lynn, not an editorial comment speaking for the Financial Times as a whole.

[Virginian87]

A note: the telecom industry is one arena where there are fewer and fewer competitors.  Sprint and Nextel are together, as is AT&T and SBC as well as MCI and Verizon.  Six big names reduced to three in the span of a year, with less choice for consumers. 

Um, there never should have been more than one company in local and long distance service to begin with.  One of the government's biggest mistakes was breaking up the old AT&T Bell System in 1984.  It was the most efficient system in the world at the time.  Hopefully, AT&T will merge with BellSouth, then Qwest, and finally Verizon to create a new Bell System for the 21st century.

There would still be competition, as the cable companies like Comcast and Cox are starting to provide phone service as well.

NOTE: that is the only case where I feel there should be a monopoly in a single branch of industry.

[David S]

There is a certain economy to be obtained by scale, so big companies have an advantage but as long as there is free market competition I don't see a problem. The article point out that Walmart has about 30% of the US retail sales on some products. Walmart is now the largest company in the world, but if they have only 30% of the market that leaves 70% for others.

 Kmart once occupied the position at the top of the heap. Then Walmart, which at that time was smaller and more nimble, came along and knocked Kmart off the top of the mountain. Kmart BTW had done the same to some of their predessors.  In the future some smaller and more innovative company will do the same to Walmart. This is the history of business in America. Companies start off small, grow larger and sometimes become huge. But eventually they are replaced by companies who figured out better ways to do things. As I recall, of the companies which made up the Dow industrials 100 years ago, only one still exists.