As long as there is no external interference imposed on the choices involved in the exchanges of a market, everyone in a business is accountable to other people in a way that employed government officials are not. For example, unlike citizens under the one-and-only government, customers can choose to interact with one business over another, and even potentially put businesses out of business, which means that this pressure of competition under normal circumstances makes businesses highly accountable. The exceptions to this occur when either:

• a business receives appreciable support distinct from agreeable exchange in return, support which grants it partial or virtual immunity from this accountability, and resistance to the checks provided by competition, or

• a business has a total enforced monopoly which eliminates competition, or a less extreme, enforced preferential advantage against its competition.

Those exceptions can ensure that businesses fail to be accountable, and flourish despite competition, or because they do not have competition. Therefore the performance of businesses which succeed under such conditions will likely not be serving their customers, employees, partners, and owners as well as some competitors would. And quite clearly, these exceptions are not examples of a voluntary and free economy. A free market does not exist where these exceptions exist, so neither does Promethean capitalism.

Unfortunately, both kinds of interference are quite prevalent within modern 'capitalism,' the so-called 'free markets' of developed nations.

Subsidies, grants, loans, and bail-outs are all very common examples of unnatural support. So are taxes and regulations, which tend to favor large corporations over the same people and resources split into smaller groups, since large corporations exist as a legal whole, and since they can afford specialists to handle these issues. (However, taxes and regulations weigh down all businesses; it is simply less detracting from a large one than from a small one; these are supports only in relative terms.) Monopolies are ostensibly discouraged and forcibly split, and yet they are encouraged by corporate law and tax laws, which favor size. Today, even the best idea in the most fortunate and capable hands will not necessarily bring competitive success, in a field of large, established corporations — particularly those with political connections.

As a matter of fact, any laws which impact private businesses unevenly, provide an undeserved advantage to some businesses over others. Virtually every law which impacts the creation of something to be exchanged, or impacts those exchanges themselves, will do this. Even under the most limited government, legislation and supplying the function of government will leave a footprint, an influence which will probably produce at least partial monopolistic dominance and accompanying problems.

Even more disconcerting than partial support are the total enforced monopolies supplied by many laws, and by the patronage of businesses by governments. Examples of this include patents, trademarks, and copyrights, which are monopolies over ideas, and the enforced inability to apply ideas and knowledge which one already has. Another example is the defense industry, which has had only a tenuous acquaintance with the principle of independent competition. And of course there are the exclusive contracts made by all levels of government with private businesses selected through a process of political influence (which usually belongs to the larger corporations), contracts which can be so massive that they unbalance whole industries.

There are essentially two understandings of the word monopoly today.

One is not a real monopoly at all. It is a situation in which a business has earned the advantage in an industry or kind of business by competing more successfully than other businesses, offering something more or different, or lowering costs and therefore prices. Such a business may have a large proportion of all the business in their field, but that position has been gained through voluntary exchanges, and it can be challenged any time by the competition of other people, if they are able. This 'monopoly' is really just earned success, which in a free market tends to benefit many people, directly and indirectly. To oppose this is to oppose achievement and greatness, at least within a specific economic context. Historically, governmental anti-trust prosecution frequently finds that simple demonstrated superiority within an industry constitutes a monopoly. Possessing a certain percentage of all sales within an industry, even sometimes as little as one or two percent, is an excuse for legal action to 'break up the monopoly.' This interference is often instigated and supported by rivals of a successful business. Forcing a business to involuntarily yield what it earns through consensual trade is a tempting means to bypass what would have been required to compete.

On the other hand, a real monopoly occurs when forced control grants a business dominance which cannot be challenged, or an advantage which has nothing to do with achievement and choice. Competition with a monopoly is not allowed, will not be allowed to succeed, or will be artificially difficult. Choice between that monopoly and other options is absent, or artificially discouraged. Unscrupulous practices and exploitation become likely because the exchanges supporting success are no longer voluntary. Without alternatives, there is far less reason to earn profit through valuable and desirable achievements because profit is likely or guaranteed anyway. A monopoly is potentially harmful even to the apparent beneficiaries who have the monopoly, since the deepest personal gain tends to come through achievement, rather than the reward which may follow from achievement. Money is not necessarily the same as profit to a person, after all, especially money which is gained through exploitation.

Monopolies are not natural occurrences in a free market. A monopoly can only happen from force, either physical violence, or intimidation of an implicit threat of violence. Since governments in modern societies have exclusive rights to use socially-acceptable force to oversee exchange, and also make the rules for business in law, government is the only possible cause for the existence of any monopoly which has not been acquired through illegal use of force. The intervention of those in government using the force of law, and the influence of private businessmen in government, in a mixed economy of voluntary and involuntary exchanges, are the causes of monopoly, and all of the worst barriers to individual benefit which are experienced in modern economies.

Given that unnatural monopolies can be very harmful, a final point must be made about government. Government organizations hold monopolies over the making of rules for society in law, and over enforcement. Governments are by far the most powerful monopolies which have ever existed, and they suffer from all the problems of any organization with a monopoly, such as bureaucratic inefficiency due to lack of competition, exploitation, abusive practices, and others besides. The results are inflicted on every citizen; it may be possible sometimes to opt out of a monopolized trade at an acceptable personal cost, but there is no opting out of government. A government breaking up a monopoly amounts to the largest, most complete, and worst monopoly, dedicated to fighting monopolies — gigantic hypocrisy, and a much-advertised distraction from the fact that governments are not necessary to protect us from monopolies. Governments are monopolies, monopolies over the necessary services of protection and arbitration, monopolies which also create more monopolies.

According to Marxist-Leninist doctrine, capitalism will evolve to collapse through the concentration of capital into massive monopolies, in a stage called monopoly capitalism. This concentration of capital certainly does occur, but the 'capitalism' of today is not Promethean capitalism. It does not represent capital in an accurately subjective and decentralized understanding of value; it does not allow for free exchange between individual people. The integration of the ultimate monopoly, government, ensures the consolidation of unearned capital in other monopolies. That is the real problem, not capital or capitalism. Otherwise, capital in every sense can be created and exchanged to mutual benefit. In fact, the exceptions to economic freedom which produce monopoly, especially government, would imply at least degrees of fascism, which in economic terms is the systemic interference of government in business, the interference of business in government, and the cooperation of private business and government. True monopolies are really impossible in Promethean capitalism.

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