Dat inequality

[CoccoBill]

Same people + different incentives + different powers = different results.

Sure, but nothing changes regarding their skills and outcomes if the resources are there. And in the public sector, the potential resources are larger, and they can also be used for basic research with great long-term but no clear short-term profits, which would be much more challenging to get into in a free market.

Competition is the checks and balances in the market

These examples of monopolies you've listed aren't monopolies. There are viable alternatives to them all. Microsoft is an exciting example of just how not-monopoly market actors are as well as fundamental disadvantages of incumbent powers within them. I believe I explained why earlier ITT.

How and in what time would the free market have dealt with the railroad, MS and IBM issues without government intervention?

In virtually every area that consumers complain about monopolies by corporate oligarchies, they're actually looking at status created by government policies. Probably the best example of this right now is ISPs. Consumers think we're raked over the coals by the companies because they own the lines and there's nothing we can do about it. But that isn't true. There are a bunch of other companies who want in the ISP game, but they can't do it because municipal governments won't let them. Setting up new broadband networks is a regulatory nightmare that no amount of money solves because the regulations exist due to voting incumbents who lobby their local governments to keep out any competition (Union Policy 101). It's not a coincidence that Google Fiber started in the most deregulated area in the country (Kansas) and is nowhere close to getting into areas like New York City.

http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com...rust-lawsuits/

So all of these are made possible by government regulations and would have been sorted in no time by the market, or not been possible in the first place? Somehow I find that hard to believe. In my opinion, if certain practices that would be beneficial for individual businesses but harmful to others were not regulated, they would be much more common. The argument is the same for regulations against individuals behaving badly, why would companies be any different?

Do this: pick something where government has little involvement and compare it to something where government has a ton of involvement. How about......video games vs education? Sure government has some involvement in video games, but generally it's not market-distorting. Government has tons and tons of involvement in education at all levels. Compare them on these criteria: costs, availability for consumers, achievement of proposed goals, innovation, and any others you can think of

Look at things like how video game costs have consistently dropped while education costs have consistently risen. Or how video games have consistently achieved proposed goals while education is consistently failing its proposed goals. You can find things that are more market oriented than video games and things that are more centralized and controlled by government incentives than education, but not by much

That's most likely the case if you look at the US education system. Try Finland or South Korea and it might look different, though education and video games are such different areas that a direct comparison between them is probably not very useful. Again, the US government is in many ways broken, I'm not advocating in any way the current US implementation of a government. What I've been talking about is "a" government, which doesn't but could, until proven otherwise, exist.