ABSTRACT
Everyone seems to agree that some form of government control of business is necessary, however there are dierences of opinion regarding the exact purpose and mechanism of control. One camp believes the government's principal role is to maintain competition, supported by the view that an ecient market and maintaining competition will generally produce benets to the society. The other camp doesn't place as much trust on the markets; it believes that there are ample lessons from history to suggest that governments should focus on preventing abuse of consumers, and regulations should be imposed to prevent market failures. As a result, government's control of business takes two forms, antitrust focuses on maintaining competition, while regulation applies certain performance standards to the rms of an industry.
