People ask us what “pro-market but anti-monopoly” actually means in practice. Here it is, with no hedging:
A sector is genuinely competitive — and earns free-enterprise treatment — when it’s served by at least five firms, none holding more than 20% of the market. Fall below that, and you’re a presumed monopoly or oligopoly. The burden flips: a dominant firm has to show evidence it isn’t using its size to bully smaller competitors and that the public benefits. No evidence of good faith, no presumption of innocence for market power.
This isn’t hostility to success. It’s the opposite — it’s how you keep the door open for the next success. Concentration is the enemy of the small business and the inventor. We foster them by keeping markets honestly contestable.
Where a market simply can’t sustain five real competitors, we don’t shrug and accept a monopoly. We favor competing non-profits — rival mission-driven providers measured against each other — so even there, no one gets to coast.
Read the full plank in Competition by Design.