I'll buy a hotel and 4 houses. DO NOT PASS GO.

Also consider Joseph Schumpeter ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Schumpeter ) who "argues that technological innovation often creates temporary monopolies, allowing abnormal profits that would soon be competed away by rivals and imitators. He said that these temporary monopolies were necessary to provide the incentive necessary for firms to develop new products and processes.[16]"

I think that most monopolies are temporary.  I generally favour a restrained government, however, if monopolies are considered as serious market failures, I'm not opposed to having government intervention to weaken them and level the playing field.  From a free market standpoint, the popular press has basically ignored the idea that a monopsony (a single buyer) may cancel out a monopoly (a single producer/seller). Consider if at some point OPEC would reassert its power to restrict supply and thereby increase price, the buyers might collectively bargain and play a giant game of chicken where they refused to buy oil at OPEC's prices.  Who would blink first?  Would the OPEC countries cheat and break their cartel's position or would the buyers cheat in order to get something rather than nothing?  Whoever's side blinks first loses, even though the individual cheater may benefit.  Thus, creating a monopsony could cancel out the monopolistic power if the monopsony could maintain control of its buyers better than the monopoly could control its sales.  Interestingly, competition within a cartel or within partners of a monopoly could lead to its loss of power.