Competition Has Nothing to Do with Captialism

Amid all the erudite free-market commentary regarding the AT&T/T-Mobile case (see here , and here , and here , and

here , and here ), I have not seen any commentary making this simple point: Competition is not an intrinsic part of free markets.

The freedom to compete is guaranteed under capitalism. So, too, is the freedom to pursue happiness. But neither the existence of competition nor the existence of happiness is guaranteed.

The intellectual-cultural theory that insists a freedom to act is no freedom at all unless people are vouchsafed the means of bringing about what they seek is called the theory of positive freedom. It arose in the late nineteenth century, most notoriously with the thought of the British Hegelian T.H. Green. It has nothing at all to do with the American vision of freedom. Or with capitalism.

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