ABSTRACT
The word monopoly wrongly seems to be the briefest of contradictions with mono meaning one and poly meaning many. In fact though, monopoly is a corruption of the Greek words monos polein, which can be translated as one seller. The one-seller monopoly faces a negative-sloping demand function, that of the entire market. This allows it to set the price of its product. But almost all of our gross domestic product is produced by firms which face negative-sloping demand functions and their market structure is monopolistic. The stress of this chapter is on monopolies, but I sometimes stray to include firms which are monopolistic.
