Los Angeles -- The Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) issued the following statement:

The Microsoft trial is an egregious example of the immorality of antitrust laws.

     "The case exemplifies all that is immoral about antitrust, which punishes the productive and able because they are productive and able. Microsoft is a giant in the computer market because it has created products of value to its customers, not because it has forced junk onto unwilling consumers," said Michael S. Berliner, ARI's executive director.

     The Microsoft antitrust trial has been fueled by the envy of its competitors, among them Netscape, which feared that it would lose its market because Microsoft was delivering a web browser with its Windows software packages. Instead of creating a better product, Netscape simply decided to keep Microsoft, its more popular rival, from competing with it by pressuring the Department of Justice to bring the suit.

     Explaining the consequences of antitrust laws to successful businesses, Ayn Rand wrote: "The threat of sudden destruction, of unpredictable retaliation for unnamed offenses leaves men no other policy save one: to please the authorities without standards or principles. Anyone possessing such a stranglehold on businessmen possesses a stranglehold on the wealth and material resources of the country, which means: a stranglehold on the country."