Antitrust In America

Mr. Curran takes the bleak view that America’s huge wealth disparity has compromised our democracy. Twenty percent of the population owns 90 percent of the nation’s wealth. Fortunes are protected by a government that keeps taxes low and corporate profits high. Huge inequalities have turned our democracy into a myth as presidents, Congress and the Supreme Court have “locked” the country “into 19th Century economic policies. Our system is “rigged” – capitalism requires capitalists and laws are rigged to suit them and dominate our governance.

The deficit of democracy persists despite our frequent and regular elections, which take place in a country where economic inequality brings fewer opportunities for the non-wealthy and preserves wealth’s

He argues that the antitrust laws have been hijacked. The villain is Robert Bork and the Chicago school, which espouse a minimal role for antitrust. The Chicago School’s fundamental question for antitrust action on monopolization or merger analysis is whether a corporation increased its prices or decreased quantities. If neither occurred then, under Borkian analysis, acquiring firm not capable of monopolization or obtaining a monopoly and the government should pass on the merger. This analysis excludes “democratic” factors like deconcentration of oligopolies or capping corporate growth. Bork’s views have been adopted by the Supreme Court, as well as by many antitrust enforcers, and Mr. Curran argues that Bork’s acceptance makes antitrust a threat to

Curran that the United States suffers from serious disparities in wealth distribution. However, before I agree to join him on the barricades, I have a few questions about the democracy for which I will fight. What does it look like? Mr. Curran argues that regular and frequent elections, part of a dictionary definition of the term , are not sufficient for democracy. Perhaps he would point to a second dictionary definition of “democracy,” “an organization or situation in which everyone is treated equally and has equal rights.” That sounds good, but reasonable people have long argued about the meaning of “treating people equally.” Is equality “equal protection of the law” or is it equalizing income levels, or is it something in between? What “equality” would Americans accept, given our history of respect for private property and distrust of governmental overreaching? Would Americans accept the equalizing measures adopted by the other democratic countries to which Mr. Curran alludes? Do these other countries reject capitalism and