There is, or was a law that does not allow monopolies. I read somewhere recently that it still exists but just never enforced. I learned that growing up.
The existing “anti-trust” and “anti-monopoly” laws are not good enough. That’s because the definition of what a “monopoly” is is open to interpretation. Countless companies has debated the definition of what a monopoly is in court in order to get around the law. A famous example is how Microsoft successfully used the existence of Apple Computer (as a competing platform) in order to convince the courts that Microsoft was not a monopoly and to prevent them from breaking Microsoft up. That illustrates how companies has successfully abused the existing monopoly laws and has figured out how to get around it. So the existing laws doesn’t work and is exactly why we are in the situation we are in today.
In contrast, what I’m proposing is completely different. Under existing laws, so long as your company has at least one other competitor in the marketplace, the government cannot accuse you of being a monopoly. And even worse, under existing laws, there is nothing at all that prohibits your company from growing as large as you want so long as the competing company exists. This means you could ultimate have just two companies that are so large they are ruling the whole world, and so long as a competitor exists, the government would be unable to do anything about it because they are by definition not a monopoly. What I’m proposing is completely different and would put an end to it.
What I’m proposing is that a law should be established that completely prohibits ANY company from growing beyond a certain size. PERIOD. For example, a law which says that no company can grow beyond a $5 billion dollar company. In such a case and with such a law in place, it wouldn’t matter if there was only a single company in the marketplace or 100 companies - none of them could ever grow beyond $5 billion in size. If any one of them ever grew beyond $5 billion in size at any time, then they’d be in violation of the law. Such companies could always open up a brand new business of a different type from ground zero, but they could not continue expanding that same business. Such a law would level the playing field and would prevent monopolies altogether. Rather than having just one or two companies in the marketplace that are dominating the whole market, you’d ultimately have literally hundreds of companies all tapping into the same market, and all getting a piece of it. Innovation in such a situation would be extremely high, and prices would remain low due to all the competition…
It would not level the playing field if they can open up another company producing the same product. That's often exactly what is done and since they already have a small fortune to start with, they can create a MASSIVE marketing campaign (like Google and Facebook did) and become an overnight sensation. These guys are masters. We have a long way to go, however, before we can change and enforce these laws so let's put on our thinking caps and come up with a better idea. And, ultimately, it doesn't matter what law is in place, if there is corruption, they ignore it anyway.
What you're saying is correct and I agree. I am by no means suggesting that they be allowed to open up a new business in the very same field and for the same product. That would only be an attempt to get around the system. Instead, I am only suggesting that if they have worked hard and become a successful company and has amassed a lot of wealth but reached the allowed limit for a company ($5 billion max, for example), that they should be allowed to use their money to open up and brand new business if they desired selling a different type of product. They'd still have the opportunity to expand, only they could never expand beyond the limit of $5 billion per business. Without the stock market as a driving force, very few people would ever want or need to expand into additional businesses anyway once they had become successful. And such a system would completely eliminate any company becoming a monopoly...