Flawed logic

Allan Massie (Perspective, 1 February) implicitly accepts the Marxist fallacy that free markets lead to monopoly when, in fact, it is government intervention that leads to monopoly.

It is also untrue that the so-called “‘robber barons” were guilty of monopoly and, thus, anti-trust was needed. Anti-trust laws are irrational, contradictory, unenforceable and began as an elaborate form of protectionism.

If such laws were fully enforced, the American economy would nominally be in private hands while, in practice, being fully under state control. This economic policy has a name: fascism.

To blame the “global financial and economic turmoil of the past five years” on a lack of regulation is false. Such turmoil is the result of state intervention in the money supply making credit much more available than would have been in an actual free market.

The result is boom-and-bust and to advocate “more stringent regulation and controls of economic freedom imposed in the general or public interest” is to advocate poison as poison’s cure.

Bruce Crichton

Victoria Road

Falkirk