The Antitrust Religion still Has Many Adherents

Here’s a letter I sent recently to the Financial Times:

July 29, 2009
Editor, Financial Times
1330 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10019

From Mr Ryan Young.
Sir, Mario Monti’s call for harmonized and reinvigorated EU and U.S. antitrust policies (“Watchdogs of the world, unite!”, July 29) is misguided. Consumers are best served when competing firms concentrate on bettering themselves, rather than hobbling their rivals. Antitrust policy discourages the former, and encourages the latter. Why bother with the ongoing challenge of competing in the marketplace if one can merely go to Brussels or Washington?

The great irony of antitrust policy is that it reduces market competition whenever and wherever it is applied. Such is its very nature.

Ryan Young
Fellow in Regulatory Studies,
Competitive Enterprise Institute,
Washington, DC, US