A longstanding criticism of capitalism is that it inevitably drifts toward monopoly. Dominant firms, the argument goes, overcharge consumers, underpay workers, degrade the environment, and concentrate wealth in the hands of a self‑perpetuating elite powerful enough to distort democratic institutions. To restrain this “wild beast” of exploitative monopoly, government must intervene through regulation, price and profit controls, antitrust enforcement, or, if necessary, direct public ownership of key industries. In short, some degree of socialism is often presented as the only safeguard of the public interest. 

This view may sound persuasive if one imagines the economy as a fixed structure in which production and consumption patterns rarely change. But that static picture misses the dynamic, evolving character of American capitalism. Harvard economist Joseph Schumpeter famously described capitalism’s “essential fact” as creative destruction—the relentless process by which new firms, ideas, and technologies overturn the old, distributing benefits widely. Even entrenched giants cannot escape this pressure. Eastman Kodak’s once‑dominant position in camera film, which seemed unassailable throughout the 20th century, is largely irrelevant in the digital age. 

A similar perspective was championed closer to home by Wabash College economist Ben Rogge. Though Rogge passed away in 1980, his influence on generations of students remains strong. He played a key role in bringing Milton Friedman to Wabash in the summer of 1956 to deliver a series of lectures that later became Friedman’s seminal 1962 book, Capitalism and Freedom. 

In 1975, Rogge captured the heart of this competitive dynamism when he wrote: “Competition is a never‑ending game of leap‑frog…and it makes no difference whether you have one firm, two firms or six firms. It makes no difference how much money they are making at any given moment of time. Don’t break up IBM. Don’t break up U.S. Steel. Don’t break up the New York Yankees. Time and tide will take care of everything in the form of this leapfrogging process, of someone coming up with a new idea and leapfrogging over the old.” 

History has proven Rogge strikingly prescient. IBM still holds a commanding share of the shrinking mainframe market, but mainframes have long ceased to define modern computing. U.S. Steel, the world’s largest steelmaker in 1975, does not rank among the top 20 today. And the New York Yankees, dominant before 1975, have won “only” seven World Series titles since, compared with nineteen in the preceding fifty years. American capitalism does not trend to entrenched monopoly. Leapfrog after leapfrog, ribbet, ribbet.