this is simply false. guilds were granted status by governments and became governments. they cannot persist in free markets. you're making up facts here. look at telcom. even with so few players and so much government regulation, competition is ferocious and profits are modest despite being literally granted local oligopolies by government. i think you are seriously misstating the case in sweden. it makes my point, not yours. ICA is the huge share leader in sweden. they did 136bn SEK in revs for 2022. net income was 4.5bn SEK, a 3.3% net margin. hardly monopolistic profit extraction axfood AB is the other. (hemkop, willys) they did 2.4bn net on 73.5bn in revs = 3.2% margin. clearly, there is no ability to extract excess oligopoly/monopoly profits. these are pretty meagre margins at the edge of viability. you'd get better cash on cash return on US treasuries. so, clearly, the competition is sufficient that profits have been driven down to something approximating the risk free rate. hard to see how your claims of profiteering are supportable in the face of that outcome. this is a near perfect free market equilibrium level.