You're falling into the trap of worshipping emergent outcomes like they're a golden calf or something.
We like free-market economics because they get good results. If there's a market failure and the standard free-market economics aren't applying, like in the case of a cartel, then that's bad and we want to change it. Bad results are bad, good results are good.
> If there's a market failure and the standard free-market economics aren't applying, like in the case of a cartel, then that's bad and we want to change it. Bad results are bad, good results are good.
It must be nice to live in a world without regulatory capture.
"Want to change" doesn't imply "will do less harm than good" in this world. In fact, "want to do good" is pretty much the basis of all of the really huge problems we have.
It must be really great to live in a world where you can impute arguments to other people - guaranteed correctness, without any hassle!
Since you didn't make an argument I won't do the same disservice to you. The relevant laws in this case are anti-trust. I support them, generally, as did TR who introduced them. Regulatory capture is a problem to be battled, not a reason to throw your hands up and say "oh well, guess i'll just let myself get screwed by a couple people who managed to lock up an industry through collusion".
We like free-market economics because they get good results. If there's a market failure and the standard free-market economics aren't applying, like in the case of a cartel, then that's bad and we want to change it. Bad results are bad, good results are good.