By Eric Peters –
Imagine you are shopping for a new car, but you’re forced by law to buy only from your local Chevy dealer. No cross-shopping other makes — or other dealerships. You have to buy from this one dealer — and only the models he’s got on the floor.
Luckily, there’s no law forcing you to do business with just one dealer — nor forbidding you from cross-shopping other dealerships (and trying out other models).
This competition for your business increases the choices available to you and decreases the costs of those choices.
That’s capitalism.
Then there’s crony capitalism, which uses the power of the government to limit choices and increase prices for the artificial profit of the “connected” business.
The contact lens business, for instance.