Reacting to Baker's (2019) "Preventing the Political Misuse of Antitrust"

Neo-Brandeisian and Law and Political Economy (LPE) folks tend to emphasize the political consequences of concentrated economic power as a motivation for stricter antitrust enforcement. The basic idea is that excessive economic power might be problematic on account of its effects on the political process and democracy. In The Antitrust Paradigm: Restoring a Competitive Economy, Baker (2019) argues against introducing noneconomic goals into antitrust. This includes political considerations as well as other types of noneconomic goals including protecting things like: consumer choice, equal economic opportunity, diversity of voices, local communities, democratic decision making, jobs, entrepreneurial opportunities, and low concentration (per se). What is Baker’s case for excluding these kinds of noneconomic considerations from antitrust reform? First, Baker thinks we can make a strong case for strengthened antitrust on purely economic grounds, and so there is little need to appeal to othe

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