So, shortly after AT&T started their phone company, competition would have entered the market but was prohibited by government enforced patents? And then once the patents expired in 1893, they did start to enter the market, but the government nationalized the industry anyway in 1918?
If this is all true, then this little piece of information would really open the eyes of many occupy protesters.
You can say government creates monopolies all you want and brings pirces down and distributes money more equally all you want, till you're blue in the face, BUT, until you give them solid examples, they will never believe you. HOWEVER, I think when you do give them solid examples, they will start to think about it more and eventually WILL BE brought over. And once they are brought over, they will be the most annoying little sh*** arguing for free markets. Annoying the sh*** out of democrats and republicans and even other pro free market people.
I've been laboring that point for ages on these forums (ever since I found out). Essentially any of my posts on monopoly contain that reference
So it is true? It was a completely government created monopoly? Am I missing some info that a democrat might bring up?
My references are in my bookmarks folder at home, so you'll have to wait a bit...
This article (found via Wikipedia - see footnote #2) should be of interest.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
Ah, yes, Autolykos beat me to that link. However, I can add this one:
http://mises.org/daily/5266/The-Myth-of-Natural-Monopoly
(scroll down to "The Natural-Monopoly Myth: Telephone Services")