… is from page 71 of the original, 1982 edition of Dominick Armentano’s superb but regrettably neglected volume Antitrust and Monopoly: Anatomy of a Policy Failure ^[1]:

Efficiency is always exclusionary of less efficient competitors, but such exclusions are the very purpose of a competitive process.

(I would have said instead that “such exclusions are one of the very purposes of a competitive process,” but the importance of Armentano’s point stands.)

In the late 1980s I met the Columbia University economist Donald Dewey ^[2], and became pretty good friends with him and his wife, Ruth, until his death in 2002.  Don was one of the 20th-century’s leading scholars in the field of industrial organization and antitrust.  Although not especially political – it just wasn’t his style – I heard Don on several occasions lament the fact that Armentano’s Antitrust and Monopoly goes largely overlooked by antitrust scholars.  Don regarded Dom’s book as a genuinely path-breaking contribution.  In this assessment, as in so many others, Don was correct.

Be Sociable, Share!

• ^[3]
• ^[4]
• ^[5]
• ^[6]
• ^[7]

• ^[8]
• ^[9]
• ^[10]
• ^[11]

Comments

comments