The Evolving Populisms Of Antitrust

Some scholars divide the history of U.S. antitrust law into eras of “populism” and “economics” and assert a fundamental conflict between the two concepts. Generally, the period from the late 1970s to the present is described as economic, and the mid-twentieth century era is labeled populist. A review of Supreme Court antitrust decisions reveals a more complex picture. From the enactment of the Sherman Act in 1890, the Court's antitrust rulings have officially espoused the protection of non-elite groups from the power of big business - a populist goal - and aimed to advance this objective through economically informed rules. Populism versus economics is a false dichotomy. The populism and economics underlying antitrust jurisprudence have changed over time. In the decades following the passage of the Sherman Act, the Supreme Court often spoke of protecting small producers and displayed, at most, only secondary concern for consumers. The Court in the early era proscribed certain horizontal and vertical restraints but viewed many forms of dominant firm and horizontal conduct more favorably. Starting in the late 1930s, the Court assumed consumer protection as a principal aim of the antitrust laws but continued to champion the cause of small businesses as well. Antitrust economics took a skeptical posture toward many big business practices and treated many forms of horizontal and vertical conduct as inherently problematic. Since the 1970s, the Court has held that the antitrust laws exist only to protect consumers and also adopted the view that most forms of business conduct can benefit consumers. Although some scholars argue that antitrust law should seek to maximize “economic efficiency” and ignore distributional consequences, the courts should continue to interpret the antitrust laws as a consumer protection regime. First and foremost, Congress, as revealed in the legislative histories of the antitrust laws, showed an interest in preventing large firms from using their market power to raise prices and transfer wealth from consumers. The Congressmen that drafted the antitrust statutes showed no awareness of the neoclassical concept of efficiency, let alone an intention to promote it. Second, consumer-oriented antitrust enforcement, in respecting Congressional intent, can prevent regressive wealth transfers from consumers to producers and play an important part in containing growing economic inequality. Third, in light of how consumers often cannot organize politically on account of their vast numbers, the federal courts can serve as trustees for this group and protect its interests from better-organized producer groups. Last, just as antitrust can help consumers, consumers can provide vital popular support for antitrust enforcement.

Populism and Antitrust examines the influence of populism on competition law and shows how populism can lead to illiberal changes.

A new and urgently needed guide to making the American economy more competitive at a time when tech giants have amassed vast market power. The U.S. economy is growing less competitive. Large businesses increasingly profit by taking advantage of their customers and suppliers. These firms can also use sophisticated pricing algorithms and customer data to secure substantial and persistent advantages over smaller players. In our new Gilded Age, the likes of Google and Amazon fill the roles of Standard Oil and U.S. Steel. Jonathan Baker shows how business practices harming competition manage to go unchecked. The law has fallen behind technology, but that is not the only problem. Inspired by Robert Bork, Richard Posner, and the “Chicago school,” the Supreme Court has, since the Reagan years, steadily eroded the protections of antitrust. The Antitrust Paradigm demonstrates that Chicago-style reforms intended to unleash competitive enterprise have instead inflated market power, harming the welfare of workers and consumers, squelching innovation, and reducing overall economic growth. Baker identifies the errors in economic arguments for staying the course and advocates for a middle path between laissez-faire and forced deconcentration: the revival of pro-competitive economic regulation, of which antitrust has long been the backbone. Drawing on the latest in empirical and theoretical economics to defend the benefits of antitrust, Baker shows how enforcement and jurisprudence can be updated for the high-tech economy. His prescription is straightforward. The sooner courts and the antitrust enforcement agencies stop listening to the Chicago school and start paying attention to modern economics, the sooner Americans will reap the benefits of competition.

The stated purpose of antitrust laws is to protect competition and the public interest. But do such laws actually restrict the competitive process, harming consumers and serving the special interests of a few politically-connected competitors? Is antitrust law a necessary defense against the predatory business practices of wealthy, entrenched corporations that dominate a market? Or does antitrust law actually work to restrain and restrict the competitive process, injuring the public it is supposed to protect? This breakthrough study examines the classic cases in antitrust law and demonstrates a surprising gap between the stated aims of antitrust law and what it actually accomplishes in the real world. Instead of protecting competition, this book asserts, antitrust law actually protects certain politically-favored competitors. This is an essential work for anyone wishing to understand the limitations and problems of contemporary antitrust actions.

Analyzes the newly available statistical evidence on income distribution in the former Soviet Union both by social group and by republic, and considers the significance of inequalities as a factor contributing to the demise of the Communist regime.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Antitrust enforcement is one of the most pressing issues facing America today—and Amy Klobuchar, the widely respected senior senator from Minnesota, is leading the charge. This fascinating history of the antitrust movement shows us what led to the present moment and offers achievable solutions to prevent monopolies, promote business competition, and encourage innovation. In a world where Google reportedly controls 90 percent of the search engine market and Big Pharma’s drug price hikes impact healthcare accessibility, monopolies can hurt consumers and cause marketplace stagnation. Klobuchar—the much-admired former candidate for president of the United States—argues for swift, sweeping reform in economic, legislative, social welfare, and human rights policies, and describes plans, ideas, and legislative proposals designed to strengthen antitrust laws and antitrust enforcement. Klobuchar writes of the historic and current fights against monopolies in America, from Standard Oil and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to the Progressive Era's trust-busters; from the breakup of Ma Bell (formerly the world's biggest company and largest private telephone system) to the pricing monopoly of Big Pharma and the future of the giant tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google. She begins with the Gilded Age (1870s-1900), when builders of fortunes and rapacious robber barons such as J. P. Morgan, John Rockefeller, and Cornelius Vanderbilt were reaping vast fortunes as industrialization swept across the American landscape, with the rich getting vastly richer and the poor, poorer. She discusses President Theodore Roosevelt, who, during the Progressive Era (1890s-1920), "busted" the trusts, breaking up monopolies; the Clayton Act of 1914; the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914; and the Celler-Kefauver Act of 1950, which it strengthened the Clayton Act. She explores today's Big Pharma and its price-gouging; and tech, television, content, and agriculture communities and how a marketplace with few players, or one in which one company dominates distribution, can hurt consumer prices and stifle innovation. As the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, Klobuchar provides a fascinating exploration of antitrust in America and offers a way forward to protect all Americans from the dangers of curtailed competition, and from vast information gathering, through monopolies.

D.T. Armentano has long been one of the foremost critics of antitrust, and in this new book he states his challenge squarely: there is no respectable economic theory or empirical evidence to justify antitrust. Antitrust laws have been employed repeatedly to restrict the competitive market process and to protect the existing industrial structure. They violate both economic efficiency and individual liberty, and they should be repealed.

Since it first appeared in 1978, this seminal work by one of the foremost American legal minds of our age has dramatically changed the way the courts view government's role in private affairs. Now reissued with a new introduction and epilogue by the author, this classic shows how antitrust suits adversely affect the consumer by encouraging a costly form of protection for inefficient and uncompetitive small businesses. Robert Bork's view of antitrust law has had a profound impact on how the law has been both interpreted and applied. The Antitrust Paradox illustrates how the purpose and integrity of law can be subverted by those who do not understand the reality law addresses or who seek to make it serve unintended political and social ends. - Back cover.