Gene Chapman

Breaking Antitrust

 

The main problem with antitrust laws is that they give inept businesspeople a crutch as a substitute for innovative ideas. You can't equate big with strong. Strong businesspeople, regardless of the size of their businesses, will always be strong competitive forces, while weak businesspeople will not survive, regardless of any antitrust law. The Reagan Administration's stance is correct.

The author replies: Mr. Robinson is probably right that monopolists, in the end, are likely to do themselves in. So would embezzlers and stock swindlers -- but we don't wait for the marketplace to take care of them, nor do we consider the court fines that might be levied against them as "income redistribution." Mr. Robinson and Mr. Chapman reach for all the favorite conservative buzzwords. But like the President they defend on this matter, they fail to cite any evidence to refute the simple, and I think quite obvious, assertion that the marketplace works most efficiently when entry of new businesses is a realistic possibility and predatory pricing is outlawed. That's what the antitrust laws are supposed to accomplish. And businesspeople who compete fairly and squarely need not worry about them for a moment.

Steven Pearlstein