trade monopoly
Sole commercial control
A trade monopoly is exclusive control over the buying and selling of particular goods or services within a market or region.
Historically, governments granted trade monopolies to companies like the East India Company, giving them sole rights to conduct commerce in specified territories.
The term emphasizes commercial exchange rather than production—a company might monopolize the trade in spices without growing any themselves.
The crown granted them a trade monopoly over all goods from the colonies.
- Standard OilHistoric petroleum monopoly
- cartelPrice-fixing coalition
- antitrust legislationLaws curbing monopoly power
- market dominanceControl over a sector
- captive marketConsumers lacking purchasing alternatives
Hudson's Bay Company · mercantilism · British East India Company · Opium Wars · trading post · price fixing · price control · tariffs · De Beers · oligopoly · East India Company · protectionism · colonialism · OPEC · forced labor · guild system · antitrust laws · stranglehold
- communismMarx, Marxism, Leninism, Lenin, proletariat
- IcelandReykjavik, volcano, volcanoes, geyser, geysers
- imperialismempire building, colonization, imperial expansion, British Empire, colonies
- Dutch EmpireDutch East India Company, VOC, Batavia, New Amsterdam, Suriname
- Company RajBritish East India Company, East India Company, sepoy, sepoys, factory
- colonialismcolony, colonization, colonial rule, colonial powers, colonizer
trade monopolyfree market
Commerce without state intervention
perfect competition · open market · competitive market · free trade · free enterprise
trade monopolyderegulation
Removing governmental business restrictions
free market · free trade · open competition · economic freedom · laissez-faire economics