Fascism is the imposing of illegitimate hierarchy, communism is the imposing of illegitimate uniformity. Naturally, these are definition-dependent.
Psychologically, servility-theft results in fascist beliefs. In ownership, fascism is the taking (theft) from the bottom and giving to the top. In law, fascism hinders the bottom and grants privileges to the top. Eventually, this produces an hierarchy.
Psychologically, conformity-entitlement results in Communist beliefs, which is the political reverse of fascism. In ownership, communism is the taking (entitled theft) from the top and giving to the bottom. In law, communism is the penalizing of the top and the legal power of the bottom to mulct the top. Eventually, this produces a sort of Uniformity in equilibrium.
This is why [communists] clamor for the Nanny State, which is one-half Welfare State to lift the underdogs up, and one-half Regulatory-and-Tax State to pull the top dogs down. 1
Antitrust enforcement, the suite of law developed to protect society from evil monopolies is an example of communist law. failing is the inability to describe evil with a metric.
The proper way to deal with evil is first to identify its very principle; only then can this evil be abolished. Intervention and regulation, instead of banishing evil, only institutionalize it, and use public coercion to promote and continue this evil in official ways, instead of dispelling it. If government somehow monopolized the efforts to keep other monopolies in check, the urgent thing to do is not to use this government monopoly, but to abolish it 2
Where most communist law requires a platitude in the form of complicated and convoluted language, antitrust bluntly defines evil by arbitrary metrics such as size (economic success). For this reason, it is ineffective at identifying and applying justice to evil, as was the case with Microsoft. In 2000, antitrust scholars set their sights on Microsoft where illegal activity was not addressed. Rather institutionalized and benign behavior was punished.
The antitrust scholar is but one type of communist lawyer. He relies on an arbitrary de facto definition of “monopoly” — that a business is a monopoly because it is large and has few or no competitors. This is arbitrary. All creative entrepreneurs constitute a monopoly, new products necessarily means that no competitors exist yet.
Below are some examples of arbitrary metric being used to make ethical judgements:
You were only raped for 6 & 1/2 thrusts.
How dare you not give at least 31.4% of your property to charity.
I only stole 2.1 pounds of her gasoline out of her car.
Antitrust enforcement is a political manifestation of entitlement-conformity. It still requires some pretense. The antitrust scholar conveniently ignores the existence of virtual competitors – potential competitors. What else is stopping a de facto monopoly from artificially raising prices? Those are the predictions of modern antitrust scholars, yet it rarely happens. The antitrust scholar’s theory of “price gouging” falls apart the moment we consider the virtual competitor. At any moment, the business in question could face competition from a new rival that capitalizes on customers unhappy with the higher prices. Thus, if a business is simply “large” within some arbitrarily defined “sector” of the markets and “region” within the antitrust scholar’s territory, that business still does not have the means to exclude the virtual competitor from becoming a real one. That is the defining difference between the innocuous de facto monopoly and the de jure (legal) monopoly. Ironically, the suite of law known as antitrust enforcement is a very real monopoly. That is, it is a de jure monopoly.
Criteria based on law and other legal constraints define monopolies in law: there is a (quasi)monopoly in law when laws (or any kind of rules enforced by the use of public force) establish a monopoly by preventing customers from seeking providers not blessed by the political power, or equivalently by preventing potential competitors from providing services that compete with those from the protected provider(s). To a libertarian, such laws that promote a de jure monopoly are an assault on the liberties of consumers and competitors, even when they fail to result in a monopoly in fact.” Rideau
That last point is the defining difference between the libertarian/anarchist and the fascist/communist. One focuses on means while the other focuses on ends. It is not how much a man owns but how that ownership came to be that is the focus of law. While the fascist and communist are political diametric opposites in terms of their ideals of differences between people (hierarchy vs uniformity), they are identical in that they each define evil in terms of outcomes rather than means. Of course, this follows from any ideology that views systematic robbery (a means) as legitimate and thus submits to the State in the hope that it will be able to wield that apparatus for its own ends.
The libertarian or anarchist focuses law on victims and wrong-doers. The fascist and communist focuses law on wrong outcomes.
Government intervention, subventions, privileges, regulations, taxes, differential treatment, legal discriminations, and all pieces of legislation, are indeed coercive destruction of riches that generate de jure monopolies. Often, this intervention takes the form of laws enacted in the name of the ``public welfare´´, that limit the freedom to contract: the government forces certain transactions to take certain forms, with employers, landlords, retailers and others being bound to conditions not born from the mutual interests of exchangers: minimal and maximal prices, minimal and maximal limitations in the schedule, duration, quality and other conditions of work, of housing, of retail, etc.” Rideau
Thus, all de jure monopolies are evil since they require the initiation of violence to control people’s use of their own property, including how they may contract with others. This is legal coercion. Meanwhile, the de facto monopoly is simply a fact of reality. We are all diverse in our abilities and goals, so the outcomes of our actions are diverse as well.
Dan Sanchez. "Identity Politics and Warfare Sociology: The Who, the Whom, and the What". Essays by Dan Sanchez. Medium.
François-René Rideau. "Government and Microsoft: a Libertarian View on Monopolies".