—What do you say to people, when you say, if you had a completely free, with government control, that businesses would become so large, not that large in itself is a sin, but they would drive the other people out of business and have a controlled economy?

—You mean that capitalism would lead to monopolies?

—This is what people say, monopolies therefore are bad and have to be broken up.

—That is one of the greatest fallacies, which originated really with Karl Marx, because a free, unregulated economy, capitalism, does not lead to monopolies. It makes in fact coercive monopolies imposible; behind every monopoly there is always an act of government. Monopolies are created by government interference into the economy in the form of special privileges, franchise, licenses, special exemptions, which give a power to one company that no competitor can enjoy. In fact, under capitalism, no field of production can be closed to competition, not in a free trade. All the evils ascribed to monopolies were really not the result of a free economy, but of government intervention into the economy. It is the government interventions that create monopoly and maintain their power, as it is doing today.

- Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson | Oct. 1967.