Abolition of Antitrust

<p><em>The Abolition of Antitrust</em> asserts that antitrust laws--on economic legal and moral grounds--are bad and provides convincing evidence supporting arguments for their total abolition. Every year new antitrust prosecutions arise in the U.S. courts as in the cases against 3M and Visa/MasterCard as well as a number of ongoing antitrust cases such as those involving Microsoft and college football's use of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). Gary Hull and the contributing authors show that these cases--as well as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act itself--are based on an erroneous interpretation of the history of American business premised on bad economics. They equivocate between economic and political power--the power to produce versus the power to use physical force. For Hull anti-trust prosecutions are based on a horrible moral inversion: that it is acceptable to sacrifice America's best producers.</p><p>The contributors explain how key antitrust ideas for instance monopoly restraint of trade and anticompetitive behavior have been used to justify prosecution and then make clear why those ideas are false. They sketch the historical legal economic and moral reasoning that gave rise to the passage and growth of antitrust legislation. All of the theoretical points in this volume are woven around a number of fascinating cases both historical and current--including the Charles River Bridge Alcoa General Electric and Kellogg/General Mills. This is a dynamic and accessible work that is not simply a polemical argument for a particular policy position.</p><p>Designed for the uninformed but educated layman <em>The Abolition of Antitrust</em> also makes positive arguments in defense of wealth creation business and profit explains the proper role of government and offers a rational view of the meaning of contract and economic freedom.</p>