U.S. antirust doctrine and practice has long failed to consider issues of industrial competitiveness. The result has been a century of government-induced industrial failures. In America, antitrust is conceived as oppositional: against market power. Antitrust enforcers have never seen their job as enabling U.S. enterprises (and by extension the U.S. economy) win the global competitiveness battle. Their job was simple: chopping down firms that got too big and powerful.
Writing in American Compass, Rob Atkinson argues that the United States can no longer afford the luxury of having an antitrust policy that is divorced from industrial policy. It is time for Congress to fix this by requiring DOJ and the FTC to take into account international competitiveness implications of any actions they bring.
