The Old Brandeis and the New Madison in Historical Perspective

The modern progressive view of antitrust, which has its origins in Louis Brandeis’s famous attack on “The Curse of Bigness,” regards large firm size as a source of improper political influence, regardless of the concentration of market power within the industry. That Brandeisian view, championed today by Tim Wu and Lina Khan, now in the Biden administration, calls for a vast expansion of antitrust enforcement. Unfortunately, all too often that approach has given a free rein to monopolistic