Summary This article presents a framework drawn from Weber for analysing markets as dynamic processes in which competition is seen as a struggle to deny opportunities to others. Markets have a tendency to monopolization which arises from the efforts of economic actors to exclude others through a process of closure. The process whereby the excluded actors seek to undermine the power of the dominant actors is defined as usurpation. The article presents a case study of the consumer electronics market in Britain over a 20 year period, and analyses the various closure and usurpation strategies employed by British and Japanese firms which resulted in the exit of all the British firms from the industry.