While government regulations provide a fertile ground for growing a monopoly, I do not believe they&#x27;re a necessary condition. A for-profit business will seek the most effective ways to reach its goals. It happens that in our world, those often involve abusing the regulatory framework. But if you remove that framework, it won&#x27;t make companies magically stop trying to monopolize markets. They&#x27;ll simply grab the next most effective way to do it. Maybe some will band together, now that there is noone saying that they can&#x27;t. Maybe some will start cutting more corners on the product, or ignore even more of what used to be environmental laws. Or maybe the few remaining competitors will enter a literal fight, involving guns and bombs and tanks.<p>And now that your monopolies have guns and tanks and can openly play dirty, good luck for the small upstarts trying to take them down. They won&#x27;t be able to.<p>--<p>Anyway, I&#x27;m pretty sure that if all governments were to suddenly disappear tonight, by tomorrow morning many corporations would be already on their way to forming some new quasi-governments. I believe high-level executives are aware that a) social order is good for business, and b) having a working framework for establishing and enforcing contracts is vital to their operations.