Antitrust 2025

Antitrust policy in the United States has roughly twenty to thirty year cycles. So if past cycles are reliable indicators of future ones, we are at (or approaching) a new antitrust policy cycle, with 2025 being the approximate midpoint. Any new policy cycle will be defined by three fundamental questions: a. What is competition? b. What are the goals of competition law? c. What should be the legal standards to promote these goals? Rather than predict the state of antitrust policy in 2025 (such as more or less cartel enforcement), this Essay maps two scenarios based on these three fundamental questions. This Essay first examines some of the prevailing assumptions underlying the current answers to these three questions. By altering these assumptions, this Essay next shows how antitrust policy can significantly change over the next 30 years