Has the "age of competition" ever existed?

[Questionable]

I was speaking to one of my more left-wing professors about politics, and he was telling me how much our economy had changed and we didn't really have capitalism "as Adam Smith envisioned it" but instead cronyism or corporatocracy or whatever you want to call it. I put forth the viewpoint that we were living in "state-monopoly capitalism" as Engels had called it and it was a natural outgrowth of the early capitalism when there was still much competition, but then I got to thinking.

I started thinking about the Libertarians and the anarcho-capitalists and that whole lot, and how they always talk about how the capitalism we have now isn't capitalism and we need to get back to the "good old days" of competition.

But have those "good old days" ever existed? When I read all these economic theses from the 1700-1800s and read all these historical accounts, it seems like the problems we're having with capitalism today are identical to what they had back then. You can still find people complaining about businesses using the government to monopolize themselves, you can still find accounts of high wealth centralization leading to mass poverty, you still read all these doom-and-gloom statements from economists talking about how this capitalist crisis is the Big One.

Its seems like this idyllic age of free competition that people describe never existed. It seems like the bourgeoisie have always been hand-in-hand with the state and have always used it to enforce monopolies to squeeze out smaller businesses. Based on the history I've read I can't see where this has changed.

I used to be of the opinion that the age of free competition existed at one time but capital accumulation and concentration were unavoidable consequences that did away with it. Now I'm wondering if it ever existed at all. It seems like the problem of monopolization and wealth concentration has been a problem even in the very early days of capitalism. Am I right in coming to this conclusion?

By the way, did Adam Smith really "envision" anything? I was under the impression that he merely interpreted what was going on with capitalism at the time, like Marx did with Capital.

[campesino]

competition exist for a couple of months in the development of a new product or service, but the dominant firms quickly establish an advantage which leads to a monopoly. so in 2006, 90 percent of the goods or services had no or low competition in between firms, but 10 percent were in competition such as web and mobile applications firms. But it is ridiculous to think there is a competition between washing machine makers. when firms get big and comfortable they start to focus on cutting cost, which raises profit, not on cutting cost and lowering prices engaging in profit sucking competition.

[Zealot]

It would have existed for a while before the bourgeoisie realised that the increasing profitability of their business is dependent upon expansion out of the country after local markets are exploited. Once this expansion was completed over the entire globe, competition ceases to exist for some sectors but not in all. Even today, competitive capitalism and monopoly capitalism can exist side by side. This is something that I think Lenin himself noticed. But its tendency is towards rapid centralisation and monopolisation. It would be impossible for the "age of competition" to have never existed since monopolies can only be the result of a previously competitive form of capitalism.

[Let's Get Free]

Well, on one extreme, in the "good ol' days" of capitalism, there was such thing a "friendly competition"- two men run a 100 yard dash, the loser shakes hands with and congratulates the winner.

At the other extreme, which has always been present in capitalism, even in the days of Adam Smith, competition translates into vicious, even murderous practices- a business wiretaps the telephone wires of a competitor, undersells him, and drives the man out of business. Or, a government based on "free enterprise" helps the Shah overthrow the government of Mossadegh because the latter has nationalized the oil industry.

[hetz]

If I'm not mistaken Lenin mentioned this in "Imperialism...".


In other words, the old capitalism, the capitalism of free competition with its indispensable regulator, the Stock Exchange, is passing away. A new capitalism has come to take its place, bearing obvious features of something transient, a mixture of free competition and monopoly. The question naturally arises: into what is this new capitalism “developing”? But the bourgeois scholars are afraid to raise this question.

[Pravda]

It did exist, but it wasnt really golden (if by "age of competition" you mean early capitalism, without monopolies, large trusts etc).
But monopolies are necessary outcome of capitalist competition (centralization of capital).