Re: Antitrust Bill of Rights

[antimonopoly@juno.com (Ralph Anspach)]

  On Fri, 28 Nov 1997 16:07:34 -0500 (EST) wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)
  writes:
  
  >
  >I didn't mean to imply, by terming affirmative action, environmental
  >protection or labor unions nostrums, that they have no validity at
  >all.  Though I'm not sure how you could term past discrimination to be
  >a market failure: it seems more like a failure to let markets do their
  >proper work
  
  Ralph writes:   Even purely competitive markets start with given income
  and wealth distribution,  and wealth distribution includes distribution
  of human capital which expresses itself  also in productivity.  These
  starting factors have been influenced by past discrimination etc.  So
  when markets maximize exchange values,  they simply incorporate into
  their solutions past discrimination against women,  minorities etc.     
  . 
  
  
   In any case, Ralph is quite correct in saying the
  >following:
  >
  >>       Still,  monopolists who can pass on cures for externalities or
  >>split their monopoly profits with their labor certainly have an 
  >advantage
  >>over competitors in this regard. So this is a real problem.  But 
  >isn't
  >>the answer still found in either taxing away monopoly profits, 
  >>regulating the monopolists  or getting rid of the monopolists and 
  >then
  >>forcing all entrepreneurs,  large or small,  to incorporate their
  >>externalities into their prices and in establishing rules for labor 
  >which
  >>all have to comply with - including exporters from labor-bashing
  >>countries?  
  >
  >So if we're agreed that both conventionally liberal and conservative
  >jurists (among others) might have good reasons to subvert anti-trust
  >legislation, then what chance does any country have of implementing an
  >effective anti-turst regimen?  Surely, any program of this kind needs
  >to have it's own entrenched interests and elites to defend it.  What
  >kinds of powerful interests would find anti-trust to their liking?
  
  Ralph writes:
  
  I hear you.  The interesting question is why Congress,  which is to some
  extent at least,  response to the public,  hasn't abolished or changed
  the antitrust laws. So there must be some constitutency out there for
  fair competition.  Why is it being done by the courts?
  >
  >Bill Cooper
  >wfcooper@tiac.com 
  >