Re: Antitrust Bill of Rights

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

  On Sat, 29 Nov 1997 22:02:54 -0500 (EST), you wrote:
  
  >Ralph writes:
  >
  >Makes sense.  Next question.  So why didn't the elites control the courts
  >up to about 1975 re antitrust.  Do we really have to wait till the elites
  >once again maneuver the system into an almost collapse before things will
  >change?  I hope not. What else can be done aside from waiting for the
  >next big depression?
  
  That's a good question (unfortunately I don't think I'm qualified to
  give it the answer it deserves).
  
  I happened to be watching one of those panel discussions on the
  Supreme court, they have on C-Span last night.  One of the
  participants offered that the Court, for 40 years or so after the New
  Deal, was very reluctant to overrule the government on economic
  regulation in general because of the obstinacy of the early New Deal
  courts (and the Progressive era S.C. also, I would think) in opposing
  so many economic reforms.  He said that it was only starting in the
  1970's (due to the receding of institutional memory of that previous
  era), that the Court again began to be willing to exert itself in the
  economic arena.  Was the Justice Department far more aggressive in
  those days in opposing Anti-Trust?  Or were the majority of Anti-Trust
  actions always the result of individual actions?  Which is why the
  S.C. moved to choke off that source?
  
  Another interesting question might be why, the pre-New Deal Supreme
  Courts (which found the opportunity to strike down nearly every other
  Progressive economic innovation) never did anything about Anti-Trust?
  I suspect that there were, in those days, still significant elites
  that were suspicious of gigantism in general (whereas today, nearly
  everyone is either pro-Big Business or pro-Big Government).  As long
  as Anti-Trust was anit-Big business without being pro-Big government
  it was possible to gather some elite support for it.  After the 30's
  that was impossible (this last part is pure speculation, by the way).
  
  Bill Cooper
  wfcooper@tiac.com