The Pure Hatred of the New Antitrust

In this episode of New Ideal Live, Onkar Ghate and Ben Bayer discuss the signs of growing animus against business “monopolies,” motivated by changing attitudes about antitrust law.

Among the topics covered:

The current status of antitrust efforts;
The unprecedented levels of control being proposed;
The baseless claims about the harms of “anticompetitive” consolidation;
The invalid economics of “perfect competition” used to support antitrust;
The arbitrariness of the “public interest” standard;
The abuse of the concept of “competition”;
The difference between economic power and political power;
The invalid concept of economic “liberty” invoked to justify antitrust
The real motive behind antitrust efforts;
How honest confusion about “monopoly” lends support to antitrust law;
The psychological insight of Ayn Rand’s essay “The Age of Envy”;
Economic vs. geopolitical competition between countries;
The proper role of government in protecting consumers against fraud.

Mentioned in the discussion are Ayn Rand’s essays “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business” (available in her book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal) and “Antitrust: The Rule of Unreason” (available in her book The Voice of Reason).