With all the coverage currently being given to Microsoft's antitrust problems with the Justice Department, I thought that we should re-visit the entire concept of monopolies and government action.

Just about every high school US history textbook has a section on the big bad monopolies of about 100 years ago, and how they were hurting the little guy. Indeed, this version of events has been the accepted line, and is common knowledge that "everyone knows."

Consider the number one baddie of them all--John D. Rockefeller. Like Bill Gates, he became very rich, and worse for Rockefeller, he lived in an era when there were many more have-nots. Despite his tremendous philanthropy, he had a terrible press image, and was probably not a nice guy.

What did he do? He provided the best quality products at the lowest possible prices, which forced less efficient competitors to sell out or get out. He pioneered the development of hundreds of petroleum-based by-products, thus reducing much of the waste and pollution associated with refining. He paid above market wages to his workers, and made millionaires out of many of the company owners he bought out.

The consumers loved him. The price of kerosene dropped from 58 to 8 cents per gallon. It now only cost about 1 cent per hour to light a small home. Thousands of jobs were created, based on all the new products he developed.

OK, then. So who was against him? I'm glad you asked. Mostly, it was Rockefeller's competitors, who thought that they could win in the courts what they had lost in the marketplace. Of course, they were aided and abetted by opportunistic politicians, envious journalists--just trying to sell newspapers--and Socialist propagandists. Also, there WAS much less social justice in those days, and John D. was a real convenient target, no matter what.

How about Alcoa? In 1945, Judge Learned Hand (not the Supreme Court) wrote an opinion rejecting the "rule of reason" that the Supreme Court had applied in antitrust cases since 1911. He ruled that evidence of greed or lust for power was inessential; monopoly itself was unlawful, even though it might result from otherwise unobjectionable business practices. In his view, "Congress did not condone 'good trusts' and condemn 'bad ones'; it forbade all."

In other words, even though you did a great job, and forcing you to break up will no doubt increase the price of aluminum, you must break up. The Feds know best.

Perhaps the most burlesque example, though, of the absurdity of antitrust was the case of The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A& P). In the space of 10 years, in separate decisions, A & P was found guilty of being a monopoly by charging more, charging less, and charging the same, as its competitors. You could look it up.

So, back to Microsoft. Could History be repeating itself? I'm afraid so.

As a fellow cynic once said: Same news, different names.