Whatever Did Happen to the Antitrust Movement?

This Article begins with a historical question about whatever happened to the antitrust movement. The short answer is that antitrust grew up. It ceased to be the stuff of political banners and loose rhetoric and turned into a serious discipline, applying defensible legal and empirical techniques to problems within its range of competence. The way to repair deficiencies in antitrust law today is not to resort to an undisciplined set of goals that provide no guidance and could do serious harm to the economy.

Rather, it is to make ongoing adjustments in our technical rules of antitrust enforcement which reflect what research and experience have taught us. The antitrust laws can reach nearly every form of anticompetitive behavior, provided that they are interpreted flexibly, but this need not entail throwing out rational evidentiary requirements or accepting expansive theories of harm without proof. Further, antitrust tribunals need to avoid remedies that do more harm than good. Hobbling a large firm is easy; increasing output and benefitting consumers in the process may be much more difficult.