In the late 19th century, many Americans feared that corporations could raise vast amounts of capital to absorb smaller ones or could combine and collude with other firms to inhibit competition. In either case, critics said, business monopolies would force consumers to pay high prices and deprive them of choice. Such concerns gave rise to two major laws aimed at taking apart or preventing monopolies: the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 and the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914. Government continued to use these laws to limit monopolies throughout the 20th century. In 1984, government "trustbusters" broke a near monopoly of telephone service by American Telephone and Telegraph. In the late 1990s, the Justice Department sought to reduce dominance of the burgeoning computer software market by Microsoft Corporation, which in just a few years had grown into a major corporation with assets of $22,357 million. In general, government antitrust officials see a threat of monopoly power when a company gains control of 30 percent of the market for a commodity or service. But that is just a rule of thumb. A lot depends on the size of other competitors in the market. A company 50