Sanjukta Paul

Eight friends of the blog offer their initial reactions to the FTC’s proposed rule to ban non-compete agreements.

Seven friends of the blog offer their initial reactions to the FTC's recent policy statement on unfair methods of competition.

Given the shortcomings of the prevailing antitrust framework, a growing chorus of voices is calling for a ground-up reconstruction of competition law and policy. But what would that look like? This symposium offers an affirmative vision of the new antitrust.

The conventional interpretation of American antitrust law has neglected its democratic and egalitarian origins. As the Sherman Act's legislative history makes evident, its primary target was the concentration of economic power, rather than coordination among workers, farmers, and other smaller producers.

Centering the constitutive power of law destabilizes the usual public/private distinction and enables a vision of socialism that incorporates transformative reforms to “private” entities—and that has room for localism and decentralization, where appropriate.

There’s a common notion that pervades legal and policy debate—including among fairly liberal Democrats—that collective bargaining mechanisms, and even public coordination of markets through minimum wages and working conditions, distort market outcomes and are therefore inefficient (though they may be justified by countervailing considerations). This position immediately sets up a kind of presumption against labor…