Xe or blackwater is a business, that provides services like the U.S. military. They don't sell products they provide a service. The government has a monopoly on military force, if they did not have and enforce this monopoly, then companies could hire Xe to protect their interests in foreign countries. The governments actions that prevent companies from using Xe to advance their aims militarily does make them a monopoly (in this case at the very least a semi-good monopoly). In fact, in the past the United States has conducted military actions that were primarily for the benefit of businesses in the US.
In ancient roman times, the fire departments were a business. In several third world countries, the courts are almost a business, where the citizen who brings the largest gift almost always win the decision.
The government provides services, business provide services. The services the government should provide are those services that would be ill served by private entities, but the government does provide services. For example, you mentioned the EPA. We could let private companies perform the services of the EPA, it would be a disaster, but we could do it.
Government monopolies have different problems then private monopolies, but the fact is that the government does indeed have a monopoly on several different services. In England, the government used to grant government monopolies on things like salt and gunpowder through their power to regulate. They were in the business of regulating and creating monopolies, if a person gave the government enough money, they could buy monopoly status. Which is exactly the point I was trying to make. Our government is currently providing the service of regulating monopolies, and if someone can spend enough money on bribes they can "buy" regulatory actions that help the company. (I am from Illinois, our state government is very deep in the business of regulation for bribes)
The reason this is important is because Craig started off the discussion by stating that monopolies are bad for the people. He also makes several false implications, that monopolies are the inevitable result of capitalism, that concentration of wealth leads to monopolies, that government is always needed to prevent monopolies through regulation. It is important to realize that the government is just another form of monopoly, because it makes it clear that the argument is not about how to stop monopolies, but about how to best organize the private and public sector. Craig is hiding his actual argument, behind a false "monopolies are bad" statement. He is smearing the entire private sector as a bad evil corporate machine that is going to generate evil monopolies that will destroy our lives if we do not place the progressive democrats in power to protect us.
He has several good points, and his intentions are good, but he assumes the government monopolies are good by definition because they are the government, while business monopolies are bad by definition because they are businesses. Illinois provides examples of how the government monopoly can be bad (licenses for bribes). It would be interesting to have a good debate about how monopolies, oligopolies and the government should be setup, but he is so vague and intentionally misleading that it would not be productive.
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