Want to rescue rural America? Bust monopolies
<i>&quot;I started a manufacturing company in Little Elm, about 35 miles north of Dallas, to produce the first-ever automatically retracting syringe to eliminate the risk of nurses contracting HIV through accidental needle sticks. The syringe received rave reviews from nurses, hospital executives and public health officials, a major grant from the National Institutes of Health and robust private investment. But when my partners and I tried to sell it to hospitals, we were told time and time again that even though it was a better product — a lifesaving product — they weren’t able to purchase it. The primary supplier of syringes, which controlled 80 percent of the market, structured an arrangement with a vast network of hospitals that essentially closed our industry to new firms for good.&quot;</i><p>A market in which buyers are not free to choose better products is not a free market.<p>A market in which new entrants cannot compete <i>fairly</i> against established players is not a free market.<p>A market in which innovators have to get permission and pay established players for &quot;access&quot; (think ISPs) is not a free market.<p>And yes, a market in which economic and political power is concentrated in large corporations geographically clustered in a handful of giant metropolitan areas... is also not a free market.<p>Those corporations have both strong incentives and the means to change the rules of competition to their advantage.