Adam Smith, one of the great economists of the time pretty much paid no attention to monopolies and if he did he said they were due to special rules granted by the state. His main argument is that it was market forces that ensured the production of the right goods and services. He thinks that his would happen because producers would want to make profits by providing them. Smith agrees that without government intervention, it will form into a laissez-faire environment, and public well-being would increase from competition organizing production to benefit the public. This was eventually proven wrong in the 19th century when railroads and utilities benefited from economies of scale and became private monopolies. He also felt there was nothing one co

The article shows that most economists believed that the idea of a monopoly working was so remote that they simply refused to give it much importance. In a quote in the Penny Cyclopedia (1839) one passage states that if a small group of producers were to engage in monopolistic behavior thereby increasing the price, other producers would automatically see this as an incentive to produce at a lower price and compete for market share. After the Sherman Act was enacted most economists were generally upset with it. Some economists however were a little more receptive to its potential benefits. One of these economists was J. B. Clark who basically believed that the anti monopoly laws were meant to control uncompetitive practices such as price cutting and preventing entry of other competitors to the market.

uld do to stop monopolies if they were to occur since no one could stop businessmen from meeting in private and deciding what they would do to improve their business. Smith quotes, “Nothing can be done about the instances of monopoly and collusion of small numbers of rivals”.

I find it interesting that Stigler adds another theory which he doesn't quite believe himself but nevertheless talks about it. He says that the number of economists employed in antitrust legislation, control and consulting is quite large. Even though compensation for these economists doesn't appear to be the incentive to work in

Some topics in this essay:
George Stigler, Adam Smith, Sherman Act, Stuart Mill, Penny Cyclopedia, antitrust laws, , competition mean, competition mean producers, sherman act, paid attention, lower price, legislation control, economies scale, mean producers, increase popularity, enacted economists,