… is from page 117 of Robert Bork’s brilliant 1978 book, The Antitrust Paradox:
There is no body of knowledge other than conventional price theory that can serve as a guide to the effects of business behavior upon consumer welfare. To abandon economic theory is to abandon the possibility of a rational antitrust law.
DBx: Yes, but I would go even further than Bork. First, conventional price theory – which I so very much admire and respect – should be supplemented with the Austrian theory of entrepreneurship and market rivalry. Second, when it’s appropriately applied, the resulting price theory reveals that the only rational antitrust law is no antitrust law.
Nevertheless, Bork is correct to insist that if there is to be antirust legislation, the damage that it will do to the economy will be kept to a minimum only if it is guided by sound economic price theory.
