It is as true as when Adam Smith first penned out the concept in Wealth of Nations. Commercial actors are always motivated to limit competition. This is but the latest
iteration. And as he noted, the most efficacious way to effect such special interest gain, at the cost of the polis at large, is through the use of law:
"To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers…
The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."
The Wealth Of Nations, Book IV Chapter VIII, p. 145, paras. c29-30.
I bolded his most excellent advice as to the attitude to have when commercial actors agitate in the public square for restrictions on trade. I at once love commerce, that driver of wealth creation, and deeply distrust it. The ying and the yang.
