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Media type:
E-Article
Title:
Antitrust in History
Contributor:
Hawk, Barry E.
imprint:
SAGE Publications, 2018
Published in:The Antitrust Bulletin
Language:
English
DOI:
10.1177/0003603x18783124
ISSN:
0003-603X;
1930-7969
Origination:
Footnote:
Description:
<jats:p> The antitrust world before 1890 looks barren when compared with today’s global antitrust industry. The most common antitrust laws in pre-modern societies condemned practices that had the perceived tendency to raise prices: forestalling, hoarding and price fixing. Enforcement was focused on retail markets and trade in essential foodstuffs, like grain. Laws intended to ensure fair prices are common throughout history. Rules prohibiting unfair or excessive prices raise the more general question of price controls in pre-industrial societies. The historical evidence is ambiguous. Laws prohibiting monopolistic or abusive conduct are less clearly evident than anti-cartel laws in pre-industrial societies, although a few references exist. Before the 20th century, courts and authorities lacked the tools of modern economic analysis, like mathematics-based theories of harm. This absence of modern economics meant that there was no clear distinction among “economic,” “social,” “moral” and “political” policy objectives. Laws concerning product quality, consumer fraud and misrepresentations are commonly found in pre-modern societies. Although consumer protection rules were based on notions of fair dealing and justice, the rules were consistent with modern economic notions of transaction cost efficiencies, asymmetric market information and imperfect market information. </jats:p>