What are antitrust laws for, when competition is normal with businesses?
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Because strategy beats competition.
Suppose you and me are both selling widgets. If we are in competition, we can both make a profit selling widgets for $100; so we end up selling at that price. However, if instead we agree to sell widgets for $150, we both end up making a lot more money.
And we see that in practice. In the US, there have been massive cases of multiple companies making secret agreements to raise the prices of things they are selling or lowering the prices of things they are buying. It’s happened in railroads, in dealing with labor (agreeing not to pay workers more than a certain amount), in telecom (phone services, internet, cell phone service), in food (buying food from farmers; selling food to consumers), and in a lot of other cases.
Acting against the trust might get you more business in the short term – but in the long term, you’re much better off cooperating with the trust. And left to their own devices, most industries would engage in this. Because individuals usually can’t cooperate in the same organized way; governments take steps to even the playing field and limit how much industries can cooperate internally.
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