Our freedom of choice in a competitive society rest on the fact that, if one person refuses to satisfy our wishes we can turn to another. But if we face a monopolist we are at his mercy. And an authority directing the whole economic system would be the most powerful monopolist conceivable.
- Friedrich Hayek
- Road to Serfdom
Monopolists, by keeping the market constantly understocked, by never fully supplying the effectual demand, sell their commodities much above the natural price, and raise their emoluments, whether they consist of wages or profit, greatly above their natural rate.
- Adam Smith
Wealth of Nations (1776; Cannan's ed., 1976), p. 69.
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