Authentic Audit Reform: Relinquish the Monopoly
Had retailing been organized like the professions, supermarkets with lower costs and prices and a wider range of goods and services could never have emerged. Indeed, had the professions been dominant through manufacture and trade over the past two centuries, we would never have got to the horse-and-buggy stage, let alone beyond it.
––D. S. Lees, Economic Consequences of the Professions, 1966
Customers are best served when they have many competitive alternatives, and they are suspicious of self-serving monopolies. Of course, as sellers we all want to be monopolies, with little competition, the ability to charge high prices, bar entry to potential competitors, and be able to rest on our past successes and not have to perform the difficult job of constant innovation and experimentation where success is measured by the external customer, not internal industry standards, or ineffective government regulations.