>There does appear to be a tendency towards monopoly/oligopoly.
Really? Where? In the Golden Age, there were three car companies in the U.S. market; now there are, what, ten? Steel was dominated by U.S. Steel - now we have minimills and imports. In computers, there was once IBM - now there are scores of computer makers. Oil was once priced by the Texas Railroad Commission, then OPEC - now it's priced by futures traders. Airfares were once regulated - now they're a mess (the big guys would like to be an oligopoly, but new entrants keep frustrating that). There's consolidation in retailing - but Wal-Mart is cutting prices, not raising them as a monopolist would. (Small-scale retailing can be less competitive than large-scale; Sam's Club is a lot cheaper than the corner hardware store or bodega.) So where's the increasing concentration?
Doug