Antitrust Paradox

by Robert H. Bork

Shows how antitrust suits adversely affect the consumer by encouraging a costly form of protection for inefficient and uncompetitive small businesses. Bork sees antitrust law as a microcosm which reflects the larger movements of our society, such as the tension between liberty and equality.

Genres: Law, Economics, Nonfiction, Business, Politics, Finance

479 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Robert Heron Bork was an American legal scholar who advocated the judicial philosophy of originalism. Bork served as a Yale Law School professor, Solicitor General, Acting Attorney General, and a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In 1987, he was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan, but the Senate rejected his nomination. Bork had more success as an antitrust scholar, where his once-idiosyncratic view that antitrust law should focus on maximizing consumer welfare has come to dominate American legal thinking on the subject.

Reviews

[Evan Baas · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF ~ sorry

Ironic that a strict originalist wants to completely reinterpret the purpose of a law. Bork famously opposed the civil rights act on the grounds that it isnt explicit to the 14th ammendment. But here, he wants judges to allow mergers becuase the goal of antitrust should be to help consumers (in the short term, and completely ignore labor). I guess it is okay if it helps the obscenely wealthy get even richer, but allowing minorities (you know, consumers) to participate in the economy is just too far. You need to ammend the consitution for literally everything else.

On the whole, I think the abandonment of Anti trust has caused most of the problems in America. The stagnation of growth, lower wages (labor has less barganing power), inequality, corrupt gov't... But apparently this is the utopia Bork forsaw. It seems like the people that love capitalism have no problem with policies that would completely destroy all the things they claim make it so good.

[Pavelas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Borko Antitrust Paradox - viena įtakingiusių kada nors parašytų knygų apie konkurencijos politiką. Nors šiais laikais beveik niekas Borko nebepalaiko, jis tebėra minimas ir analizuojamas dažname diskurse.

Borkas įvertino tuometinę (8 dešimtmečio) konkurencijos politikos padėtį JAV ir negailestingai ją sukritikavo. Jo pagrindinis priekaištas - kad Amerikos teismai pernelyg griežtai vertino įmonių veiksmus ir pasmerkė daugelį šalies ekonomikai ir vartotojams naudingų verslo iniciatyvų (darė pirmojo tipo klaidas).

Borkas metodiškai išnagrinėjo atskiras tariamai antikonkurencinių veiksmų formas ir paaiškino, kaip teismai klydo jas vertindami.

Įdomiausia tai, kad po šios knygos (nors ir nebūtinai DĖL jos) reikalai pradėjo keistis ir teismai vis palankiau vertino prieš tai smerktą įmonių elgesį. Tačiau ilgainiui požiūris apsisuko 180 laipsnių ir daugelis ekspertų pradėjo sakyti priešingai - kad JAV niekur nebeįžvelgiama konkurencijos problemų, net kai jos bado akis.

Paskui prezidentaujant Biden’ui JAV konkurencijos institucijos (taip, JAV jos federaliniu lygmeniu yra dvi) susizgribo ir sugriežtino priežiūrą. Kaip yra dabar su Trumpu aš net jau nebežinau. Žodžiu, keičiasi šiame lauke ten viskas periodiškai, bet įsiūbavo mechanizmą ko gero Borkas.

[Thom · Rating 3 out of 5]

By now, other wise writers have an exposed and thoroughly discredited the tragic unpragmatism of Robert Bork's formalist legal theory.

Yet damned if he didn't start to convince me that his views were better as I read the Antitrust Paradox. Whatever the present utility of his views, Bork makes a formidible and respectable defense of judicial formalism (a theory that views the role of the judge as extremely limited).

And leaving aside the theoretical expressions and implications of Bork's many writings, this work is magnificent in the glimpse it provides into the mind of masterful legal thinker. Although Bork's legal theorizings--and some of his less popular beliefs--are roundly despised both inside and outside legal circles, in The Antitrust Paradox Bork demonstrates his superb skill in the more mundane aspects of legal thinking--evaluating the merit and validity of legal decisions; comparing and criticizing judicial decisions in ways that are empirically, historically, and analytically sound and reliable. In these tasks, Bork's skills as a lawyer and thinker are beyond reproach. Throughout the first part of the book he deftly reveals the stupidity and dissemblance that pervades much of the Supreme Court's early jurisprudence in Antitrust law. In doing so, he unfolds an economic analysis of antirtust law that transformed one of the most controversial and baffling areas of law ever developed by human civilization, and in witnessing it the open-minded reader cannot avoid being edified and improved by it.

Hate the man, but don't dismiss this work based on his subsequent infamy. This book rightfully deserves its status as a classic of legal thought.

[B · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book's biggest problem is the difficult in when to go fast and when to go slow. I think ultimately it needed to goal slower.

The book's biggest substantive problem is that there's a circular-ish assumption that relates to a series of assumptions: everything that businesses do is for profit maximization, profit maximization is good for consumer welfare, and consumer welfare is good for antitrust. Basically, antitrust is only to a couple of really bad businessmen who try to screw competitors even thought it is likely detrimental to them.

There's a weird law-scholar-tic that he cites a lot of people by name because it's important to cite. But the names in the next are kind of distracting. This is very minor.

But there's a lot of information here and the position is laid out very strong. I would like to see a counterargument because this is so coherent but the author makes clear that it is not the dominant position of his time.

[Kate Mereand-Sinha · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is pivotal, seminal, and in many ways wrong & harmful. Originalist Robert Bork wrote an article in 1966 that looked at the legislative intent of the Sherman Act to limit the scope of antitrust law in the US. With his late 1970s book he succeeded in changing an entire field of law. It marks a critical in a turning point in American history.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important book that transformed the nation's antitrust law. I reviewed it positively in the Hartford Courant in the late 1970s upon publication, and have stuck with that view since even as many of the author's other book failed to meet this high level in the years afterward before his passing.

[Jim Milway · Rating 4 out of 5]

With all the awful stuff coming out of Biden Administration and the new head of the FTC, I thought I should read this book. The book was not really an intellectual breakthrough as Bork simply applied basic economics as taught in undergraduate courses to the laws emanating from Congress and subsequent judicial decisions. In a nutshell, Bork agrees we should combat monopolies gained illegally and price fixing by cartels. But, if consumer welfare is our talisman, the we shouldn't be worried about vertical integration, agreements to include and exclude various competitors in creating an efficient distribution structure, price maintenance, etc. We should be against predatory pricing that aims to achieve a monopoly. But Bork demonstrates that such a strategy will typically fail.

Sad to see the nonsense emanating from Washington these days. With luck the course will change.

[Arhon Strauss · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good prose. Convincing rhetoric. Weaker logic. Terrible history.

[Connor Sullivan · Rating 1 out of 5]

rip (not!)

[Kate]

For all intents and purposes I'm done with this book--I read it cover-to-cover, but I would venture to say that much of it is opaque for those without a background in law. Chapter 7 was the most useful to me. All in all though, I guess I'll look elsewhere for a good book to provide insight into the DOJ publishing lawsuit.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Classic, even though his use of the term 'consumer welfare' gives me headaches on a daily basis ...