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Vertical integration is not competition. A decision maker at any level within the vertical of power is facing internal competition from political rivals, but no results-based competition from his peers in other companies. So this promotes political shenanigans, and applies negative selection pressure on the actual product quality.

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This is some kind of vertical dis–integration. They literally sold their factories and tools to their contractors because owning land and buildings and machinery was dragging down their metrics! (Specifically assets to earnings or something along those lines.)

But regardless of that, breaking up a large company because it has some problem doesn’t fix the problem. It just makes all the smaller companies you created easier to purchase. Just look at AT&T. NorTel bought every single one of the baby bells within a decade of their creation, resulting in just as much of a monopoly except now in a foreign corporation.

Interested in the Nortel acquisitions, do you have a reference? I don’t see that in the Wikipedia narrative, but maybe I’m misunderstanding.

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