Law Commons^™

The Commons, Capitalism, And The Constitution, George Skouras

George Skouras

Thesis Summary: the erosion of the Commons in the United States has contributed to the deterioration of community and uprooting of people in order to meet the dynamic demands of capitalism. This article suggests countervailing measures to help remedy the situation.

What Consensus? Ideology, Politics And Elections Still Matter, Steven C. Salop

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article, which was prepared for an ABA Antitrust Section Panel, discusses the role of ideology and politics in antitrust enforcement and the impact of elections in the last twenty year on enforcement and policy at the federal antitrust agencies. The article explains the differences in antitrust ideologies and their impact on policy preferences. The article then uses a database of civil non-merger complaints by the DOJ and FTC over the last three Presidential administrations to analyze changes in the number, type and other characteristics of antitrust enforcement. It also discusses change in vertical merger enforcement and other antirust policies …

The Evolving Populisms Of Antitrust, Sandeep Vaheesan

Sandeep Vaheesan

Scholars often divide the eras of U.S. antitrust law into those of “populism” and “economics” and posit a fundamental conflict between the two concepts. Generally, the decisions of the current antitrust era are described as economic, and the mid-twentieth century period is labeled as populist. A review of Supreme Court decisions on antitrust reveals a more complex picture. From the enactment of the Sherman Act in 1890, the Court’s antitrust rulings have spoken of populist goals and aimed to advance these objectives through economically informed rules. Populism versus economics is thus a false dichotomy.

The populism and economics of antitrust …

Economics And Politics: Perspectives On The Goals And Future Of Antitrust, Jonathan Baker

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This article examines the roles of economics and politics in U.S. antitrust from several perspectives. It explains why the modern debate over the economic welfare standard that enforcers and courts should pursue is unsatisfying. It connects economics and politics by describing antitrust’s economic goals as the product of a mid-20th century political understanding about the nature of economic regulation that has continued in force to this day. To protect that understanding, it explains, antitrust rules should now be implemented using a qualified consumer welfare standard. The article also identifies contemporary political tensions that threaten to create regulatory gridlock, or even …