On this subject I
am reminded of a joke that Walter
Block gave in this
[MP3] fun interview hosted by Scott
Horton. He originally gave this joke to a bunch of anti-trust lawyers
and economists. . .
First joke is that there are three prisoners in the gulag in the
former Soviet Union. The three find out why each of them is there. The
first said that he came late to work and was accused of cheating the State
out of labor. The second guy said that he came early and was accused of
trying to out-compete his comrades. The third guy said that he came to
work everyday and exactly on time, and the KGB accused him of owning a
Western wristwatch.
Second joke is that there are three prisoners in the U.S. They were
all in jail for economic crimes of violating monopoly laws. First guy said
that he charged higher prices than anyone else and the government then
accused him of price gouging and profiteering. Second guy charged lower
prices than anyone else and they accused him of predatory and cutthroat
pricing. And the third guy said that he charged the same prices as
everyone else and they accused him of collusion and price fixing.
The first joke got some blithe laughs, but not the second one. They
knew that the truth revealed in the second joke would mean the end of
them. As Dr. Block says in the interview, we can have a justifiable and
definable law against something like murder, but this is not the case with
antitrust laws. These laws should not pass our initial olfactory
impression.