Beginning in the late nineteenth century, Congress enacted a series of measures, known as antitrust laws, designed to protect consumers from monopolies and collusion among competitors that undermine the fairness of the marketplace. Though enforced haphazardly, these laws set the rules of competition in a free-market economy until the early 1980s, when government policy makers under Ronald Reagan began to dismantle antitrust enforcement and adopt more “business-friendly” procedures based on the conservative notion that all markets will self-correct when government simply gets out of the way. Reback, one of the nation’s most prominent antitrust attorneys, recounts many of the major court cases that he was involved in, including the breakup of AT&T, early cases of software copyright infringement, and the “trial of the century,” the federal lawsuit against Microsoft. By demonstrating how rampant price-fixing and hidden fees in everything from high-speed Internet access, wireless phone service, and cable providers to travel and financial services have stifled competition and produced higher-priced but inferior products and services for consumers, Reback makes the case for seriously reconsidering the laissez-faire approach to antitrust enforcement. --David Siegfried
Product Description
Why we need government intervention in the free market to protect competition and encourage innovationStarting about thirty years ago, conservatives forced an overhaul of competition policy that has loosened business rules for everything from selling products to buying competitors.Gary Reback thinks the changes have gone too far. Today?s competition policies, he argues, were made for the old manufacturing economy of the 1970s. But in a high-tech world, these policies actually slow innovation, hurt consumers, and entrench big companies at the expense of entrepreneurs.Free the Market! is both a memoir of Reback?s titanic legal battles?involving top companies such as Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, and AT&T?and a persuasive argument for measured government intervention in the free market to foster competition. Among the fascinating questions he considers:? Can a company ever compete too hard for the public good?? Should policy makers worry more about promoting competition or improving efficiency?? Does it help consumers when a manufacturer sets the prices its retailers charge?? Should the government do more to stop controversial mergers?? At what point does intellectual property protection hurt innovation?
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