Forget Consumer Welfare. This Antitrust Movement Targets Power Instead
Barry Lynn speaking at a New America symposium at Columbia University, 2016.
Source: New America
Four decades ago, a group of conservative academics known as the Chicago School revolutionized legal and economic thinking about antitrust in the U.S. Their view, which held that competition policy should focus on business efficiency and consumer benefits, ushered in a more hands-off approach to mergers and monopolies that’s lasted ever since.
Today, with mounting evidence of increased concentration and declining competition across the economy, a small group of policy wonks is mounting an attack on corporate consolidation. Mockingly branded as hipsters by critics, their goal is not just to toughen enforcement by the federal government, but to return antitrust policy to its early 20th century roots to take on new corporate giants, particularly in the tech sector.