In economics, government monopoly is a form of coercive monopoly, in which a government agency is the sole provider of a particular good or service and competition is prohibited by law. It is usually distinguished from a government-granted monopoly, where the government grants a monopoly to a private individual or company.
A government monopoly may be run by any level of government - national, regional, local; for levels below the national, it is a local monopoly. The term state monopoly usually means a government monopoly run by the national government, although it may also refer to monopolies run by regional entities called "states" (notably the US states).
When such a monopoly is granted to a private party, it is a government-granted monopoly; when it is operated by government itself, it is a government monopoly or statemonopoly.
A local monopoly is a monopoly of a market in a particular area, usually a town or even a smaller locality: the term is used to differentiate a monopoly that is geographically limited within a country, as the default assumption is that a monopoly covers the entire industry in a given country.
A coercive monopoly is one that arises and whose existence is maintained as the result of any sort of activity that violates the principle of a free market and is therefore insulated from competition which would otherwise be a potential threat to its superior status.
Becker pointed to the United States as an example of a place where this type of monopoly was prohibited, and he described the tremendous benefits that resulted from a competitive market in religion.
Becker stated that there are "those who support a monopolistic public school system." However, there is no monopoly in the area of education in the United States (as, for example, there is in the delivery of first-class mail), and there never has been.
That is, not only was a statemonopoly in religion not permitted but also the state itself was prohibited from even competing in the area of religion.
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