An end to anti-trust protectionism?

Worried about an increasing number of anti-trust lawsuits triggered
by competitors rather than consumers, some 240 economists signed an
open letter
to President
Clinton calling for an end to “speculative anti-trust enforcement
efforts.”

According to David J. Theroux, founder and president of The
Independent Institute, the
letter was prompted by an increasing number of antitrust actions against
such companies as Intel, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, and Visa and
MasterCard. And now, as the Microsoft trial is winding down, economists
are worried that a whole new round of suits may be in the offing unless
the federal government revises its policies.

“In these cases, the antitrust actions were not started as a result
of complaints from consumers, but instead by complaints from competitors
of those firms,” Theroux told WorldNetDaily. That, he insisted, was not
the onus of original anti-trust laws. “Instead, these kinds of suits
have turned into a way competitors can unfairly level the playing
field.”

Consumers of high technology have enjoyed falling prices, expanding
outputs, and a breathtaking array of new products and innovations,
Theroux pointed out.

“High technology markets are among the most dynamic and competitive
in the world, and it is a tribute to open markets and entrepreneurial
genius that American firms lead in so many of these industries,” he
said.

However, the same developments “place heavy pressures on rival
businesses, which must keep pace or lose their competitive races.”
Instead of using anti-trust suits, Theroux said, “Rivals can [already]
legitimately respond by improving their own products or by lowering
prices.”

Increasingly, however, some firms have attempted to “handicap their
rivals’ races by turning to the government for protection.”

The letter says that such antitrust efforts, which are “based upon
speculative rather than actual harm to consumers,” quell market forces
and “replace consumer choices with bureaucratic and political
decisions.” Theroux said, “this results in weakened U.S. firms and
reduced international competitiveness.”

The letter, as well as the names of the signatories, ran as an
advertisement in The New York Times and the Washington Post in early
June.

Theroux said the anti-trust letter was born about three months ago
and was fashioned after a similar letter directed against the passage of
Clinton’s health care proposals in 1993. Now as then, he said he hopes
to educate the American people about anti-trust laws and what they are
designed to do.

“Back then,” he said, “before our letter was published, most people
were accepting Clinton at his word. Our letter got a lot of publicity
and helped change the focus of the debate” because it was laden with the
signatures of so many influential economists.

Theroux said he believed today’s anti-trust suits are the result of
“key campaign contributions, a sort of payback.”