[...]... approach is naive Thus, it will be argued below that even additional reforms will not be sufficient and that the case against antitrust regulation is strong enough to justify the complete repeal of all the laws 'The Case for Repeal The case for the repeal of the antitrust laws can be summarized as foHows: First, the laws misconstrue the fundamental nature of both competition and monopoly Competition is... (1969) xiii Antitrust: The Case for Repeal concentration,8 and the "exclusionary" practices and high market share of United Shoe Machinery9 and International Business Machines 10 Theory Revisionism and Policy Reform Criticism of the structure-conduct-performance framework and of traditional antitrust regulation increased sharply in the 1970s The so-called "new learning" challenged some of the theoretical... criticism of the traditional barriers-to-entry doctrine, see Robert H Bork, The Antitrust Paradox: A Policy at War with Itself, (New York: Basic Books, 1978), chap 16 See also Harold Demsetz, "Barriers to Entry," American Economic Review 72 (March 1982): 4 7-5 7 13 Antitrust: The Case for Repeal By at least the mid 1970s it was becoming clear that much of the antitrust case history did not confirm the resource... progress made to date in antitrust reform has been only administrative Administrative changes and reforms are helpful and should not be underestimated But they should not be overestimated, either The antitrust statutes-even the blatantly anticonsumer Robinson-Patman Act-remain firmly in place, and much of the current enforcement effort is still traditional in nature and, therefore, thoroughly misguided... entry that appeared to shelter so-called dominant firms (product differentiation, for example) could be attacked under the antitrust laws to make the marketplace more efficient The structure-conduct-performance perspective became the primary intellectual justification for traditional antitrust policy in the 1950s and 1960s.5 Within that framework, several classic antitrust cases were brought to curb price... The Case Against Antitrust Policy The uptick in antitrust enforcement and the irrational attack on Microsoft should not distract us from the larger and longer picture: the intellectual case against antitrust regulation has been building for decades The most important theoretical development has been the increasing professional disenchantment with the socalled barriers-to-entry doctrine 1 This doctrine... economic performance can make it difficult for new firms to enter markets or for old firms to expand their market shares But none of this is unfair or unfortunate from any consumer perspective, and none of it can rationalize an antitrust attack on the firms with the superior performance A reexamination of the antitrust case evidence also tended to support administrative reforms in antitrust policy 1For an... more quickly than the less efficient firms In addition, over the long run, profit rates tended to decline in the high-concentration markets and to increase in the low-concentration markets, indicating that the competitive-market process of resource reallocation was alive and well In short, evidence from the so-called new learning undercut much of the rationale for the traditional antitrust regulation... arguments for integrating its browser and operating system,15 arguments that could not be made conclusively for the strict exclusivedealing contracts in the newspaper case In short, Lorain Journal and the case against Microsoft have nothing of substance in common Through the Looking Glass The Microsoft case highlights the intellectual bankruptcy of antitrust policy The industry was legally open; there... merger guidelines, the FTC and the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department have continued to regulate, delay, and oppose many important business consolidations Fifth, the antitrust laws are a form of government regulation, and, like all government regulation, they tend to 18 The Case Against Antitrust Policy make the economy less efficient In the name of preserving competition, the efficient competitive . we have seen to date. The majority of important antitrust vii Antitrust: The Case for Repeal critics do not support the repeal of antitrust laws; in their view, there is an appropriate. Groups and the Antitrust Paradox," Cato Journa/6 (Winter 1987): 80 1-1 8; or xi Antitrust: The Case for Repeal It can also be argued that there has traditionally