Antitrust Economics on Trial A Dialogue on the Ne Laissez-Faire [Hardcover]

Is it the central purpose of American antitrust policy to encourage decentralization of economic power? Or is it to promote consumer welfare ? Is there a painful trade-off between market dominance and economic efficiency ? What is the proper role of government in this area? In recent years the public policy debate on these core questions has been marked by a cacophony of divergent opinions--theorists against empiricists, apostles of the new learning against defenders of the traditional structure-conduct-performance paradigm, laissez-faire advocates against interventionists. Utilizing a distinctively innovative format, Walter Adams and James Brock examine these issues in the context of a courtroom dialogue among a proponent of the new learning (Chicago School), a prosecuting attorney, and a U.S. district judge. In contrast to bloodless scientific treatises or ideologically inspired polemical tracts, this book lays bare the central arguments in the debate about free-market economics and the latent assumptions and disguised terminology on which those arguments are based. The dialogue is both gripping and entertaining--designed by the authors to be reminiscent at times of the Theater of the Absurd.

Originally published in 1991.

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