Antitrust: A Missing Key to Prosperity, Opportunity, and Democracy

When a people set out to structure an economy, the most important decisions revolve around how they make markets and regulate competition. Such decisions determine not merely whether their economy will thrive, and how political power will be distributed. They also shape the character of individuals, communities, and society as a whole.

For two centuries, the foremost subject of economic debate in America was how to maximize liberty and opportunity in our economy, by blocking or closely managing concentrations of power over our markets. But a generation ago two radical changes entirely altered this conversation and hence how we addressed concentration. First, economic elites largely concluded such consolidation was generally a good thing. Second, the Reagan Administration flipped the goals of antimonopoly law on their head; rather than distribute power the aim now was to promote its consolidation in the hands of a few...