When the word monopoly is spoken most immediately think of the board game made by Parker Brothers in which each player attempts to purchase all of the property and utilities that are available on the board and drive other players into bankruptcy. Clearly the association between the board game and the definition of the term are literal. The term monopoly is defined as “exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices” (Dictionary.com, 2008). Monopolies were quite common in the early days when businesses had no guidelines whatsoever. When the U.S. Supreme Court stepped into break up the Standard Oil business in the late 1800’s and enacted the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 (Wikipedia 2001), it set forth precedent for many cases to be brought up against it for years to come.
Such as the case of two major players in the entertainment community of Sirius and XM who both have a majority of the marketplace in the satellite radio business and their talks of consolidating both businesses into one. This article on Ars Technica (Lasar, 2008) expands on the idea that these corporate entities should not be allowed to merge into one corporation, but above that should also be fined for even considering the idea in back rooms and locked boardrooms. Using the model case of the Sherman Anti-Trust act in Standard Oil, the corporation floated around having anywhere between eighty five percent and ninety five percent. With those numbers, XM and Sirius would fall into the numerical category of filling that condition of a monopoly.
Since this debate still rages on, many people argue both sides of the story of the pros and cons. Many would argue that not breaking up monopolies actually increase the compet ...