Antitrust and morality
A thought-provoking post on Antitrust Review
considers the question of moral disapproval and antitrust policy. While
the myth is that proponents of more or less control are arguing about
economic theories, that is free-marketeers and populists, but the
reality is that there are moral issues that divide the two positions.
The article quotes a paper by
William H, Page, a law professor and antitrust expert at the University
of Florida, who sees two basic ideologies in the antitrust debate. On
sees market as "evolutionary" and ultimately self-correct ting means
for exchange; the other, what he calls the "intentional vision", sees
markets as "a mechanism within which powerful interests can coerce
consumers, labor, and small businesses; market structures,
consequently, tend toward monopoly. In the intentional vision, the
unfair outcomes of market processes can and should be corrected by
democratic, governmental intervention, including direct regulation."
Hanno
Kaiser at Antitrust Review takes this perceptive dichotomy a step
further and talks about two moral position. One he calls "wealth as a sign of moral goodness," which holds that "in a free market economy, one can only get rich by serving others."
The other moral stance sees "wealth as a sign of moral corruption<" As he writes, "'Free,
consensual exchanges' only exist among equals in power. In every other
case, the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
The implication is, that one can get rich only by exploiting others."
These visions of the world, he argues, animate " much of the discussion about free markets, regulation, big business, socialism, distributive justice, and globalization." Both views, he argues, "are idealisms, reflective more of individual value commitments than of how the world really works."
The
evolutionary standpoint is the orthodoxy of the right (whoever wins the
race is right), while the left is tied to a sense that whoever wins the
race is, by definition, corrupt. The world seems now divided between
those who want to roll back the regulation of business completely ("The Club for Growth") and those who want to crush big companies or, at least regulate their every transaction (militant anti-globalists).
In
this site, we have tried to assume that free markets are imperfect, but
provide much good, that corporations are not innately evil, but are
capable of destructive acts. The heads of corporations are under
enormous pressures and have enormous temptations. Serious regulation,
starting with antitrust and antifraud regulations is needed to maintain
free markets and that the penalties for seriously bas acts should be
serious in turn.
The biggest danger, as I see it, is the effect
of money on politics, a growing problem as we've shown over and over.
It is one thing to have a disagreement about how much an industry
should or should not be regulated, but when the leaders in an industry
have bought a seat at the decision-making process and have their own
lawyers actually write up the government regulations,
there is no more thought of a philosophical discussion. Or when tax
accountants, government buyers, environment regulation monitors, and
antitrust lawyers are discouraged from doing their jobs as a reward to
companies supporting the government, then the situation is bad indeed.
The
argument about whether free markets are good or not is rendered moot
when the market is not free. Even Adam Smith saw no Invisible Hand when
collusion rules any market. Our position (echoing Gandhi on Western
civilization) to the question of what we think of free markets is that "We think it would be a good idea."
12:10:03 PM 
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