Search

This article discusses various editorial arguments which appeared in the "National Review" regarding the U.S. government's antitrust trial against Microsoft Corp. The periodical's editorial asserted that Microsoft does not really have a monopoly of personal-computer operating systems. The focus of the case was the attack by Microsoft on Netscape's browser by incorporating its own browser into its operating system. It suggests that Holman W. Jenkins Jr. was misinformed in his analysis of the Microsoft case. Professor Richard Epstein addressed the merits of the Microsoft controversy.

The article asserts that the cause of the antitrust case against Bill Gates and Microsoft Corp. lies in the human tendency to be envious of someone who is by comparison richer and more successful. It criticizes the U.S. government's antitrust investigation and lawsuit against Microsoft and against Gates as a Freudian manifestation of envy and grief. In fact, no evidence was presented in the trial to show that Gates committed any crime against moral norm. But the greatest fact of the case is this, that antitrust is a crimeless crime. Until November 1999, no court had ever found Microsoft to be a monopoly.