Barry C. Lynn, Executive Director of the Open Markets Institute, testified at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing entitled "The Consumer Welfare Standard in Antitrust: Outdated or a Harbor in a Sea of Doubt?"

As he noted:

The idea that the enforcement of America’s antimonopoly laws should promote the “welfare” of the “consumer” seems innocuous enough. So too the idea that corporations should be allowed to realize whatever “efficiencies” that will improve their ability to serve “consumers.” Yet, in fact, these changes marked the adoption of a new philosophy of competition policy, and a new approach to enforcing America’s antimonopoly laws, both of which were radically at odds with the first two centuries of American history.

Click here to read the entire testimony.