By Thomas Jeffrey Horton (University of South Dakota)
This Article traces Congress’s consistent balancing and blending of social, political, moral, and economic values and objectives over the course of nearly 120 years of antitrust legislation. As a starting point, a plethora of outstanding and insightful scholarship analyzing Congress’s objectives in passing the Sherman, Clayton, and FTC Acts already exists. Less studied, however, has been Congress’s more recent legislation, including the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (HSR Act), and the National Cooperative Production Amendments of 1993 and 2004, to the National Cooperative Research Act of 1984 (NCRPA). By analyzing the legislative histories of such antitrust legislation in detail, the author seeks to show that Congress has never identified any single economic value such as consumer welfare or allocative efficiency, as the sole guiding lodestar for American antitrust. Rather, since 1890, Congress has successfully sought to blend and balance a complex set of social, political, moral, and economic ideals, values, and objectives in our antitrust laws.
The author believes that it is time to deal with the real social, political, moral, and economic values conflicts in antitrust, instead of relying on neoconservative economic proxies that unilaterally declare the values debates to be scientifically and theoretically resolved. Based on nearly 120 years of legislative history, the author concludes that we need to return to an antitrust regulatory system that better reflects Congress’s dynamic historical balancing and blending of multiple fundamental American social, political, moral, and economic values. To do so, we must begin rediscovering antitrust’s lost values, and recommence our historic pursuit of an ethical, moral, and fair free-enterprise system truly devoted to the long-term economic and social welfare of all Americans.
Featured News
Former Novartis Executive Sentenced to Probation for Role in Generic Drug Price-Fixing Scheme
May 16, 2024 by
CPI
NCAA Faces Bankruptcy Threat from Antitrust Lawsuits
May 16, 2024 by
CPI
K&L Gates Expands Antitrust Practice with New Partners
May 15, 2024 by
CPI
Polish Regulators Probe PS Store and Steam for Antitrust Violations
May 15, 2024 by
CPI
French Regulator Meat-Cutting Sector Case Following Antitrust Review
May 15, 2024 by
CPI
Antitrust Mix by CPI
Antitrust Chronicle® – Ecosystems
May 9, 2024 by
CPI
Mapping Antitrust onto Digital Ecosystems
May 9, 2024 by
CPI
Ecosystems and Competition Law: A Law and Political Economy Approach
May 9, 2024 by
CPI
Ecosystem Theories of Harm: What is Beyond the Buzzword?
May 9, 2024 by
CPI
Open Ecosystems: Benefits, Challenges, and Implications for Antitrust
May 9, 2024 by
CPI