Molting Time for Antitrust

While the purpose of antitrust policy is to protect competition, competition that removes all restraints may defeat its own goal. Dudley H. Chapman, in a revisionist analysis of antitrust history and policy, argues that our country needs practical government policy to replace our doctrinaire and unrealistic antitrust rules. The Chicago School and the economic theory on which it is based are rejected as an intellectual scandal. Competition is an end in itself and it is not the...
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While the purpose of antitrust policy is to protect competition, competition that removes all restraints may defeat its own goal. Dudley H. Chapman, in a revisionist analysis of antitrust history and policy, argues that our country needs practical government policy to replace our doctrinaire and unrealistic antitrust rules. The Chicago School and the economic theory on which it is based are rejected as an intellectual scandal. Competition is an end in itself and it is not the primary purpose of anti-trust to lower consumer prices. Chapman, a former antitrust official, uses historical materials to build his case for a new and practical antitrust policy. He proposes that we look not to Chicago but to Europe for our model.

Compared to their older, more rigid U.S. counterparts, European laws are far more rationally conceived and realistic, Chapman says. Europeans believe that some restraints on competitive freedom, both private and government, are necessary to preserve the ongoing competitive process. The book develops the thesis that for current U.S. policy to mature or molt its rigid shell we need to remove criminal penalties and prohibit abuses of market-dominating positions. Anyone in the U.S. or Europe who is active in antitrust and related issues of regulatory and trade policy--lawyers, economists, government officials in the executive branch and in Congress, academicians and students--will find in this book an important and controversial agenda.