A Restraint of Speech as a Restraint of Trade: How Rediscovering Antitrust’s Equitable Origins and Evolution Can Help Protect America’s Democracy and Economy
Author: Collin Schaffhauser
Contemporary American antitrust law finds itself constrained to a
narrow conception of economics. Where the digital, data-driven, and serviceoriented
economy grows increasingly ever-present in the American economy
and our everyday lives, courts continue to utilize a purely economic theory of
antitrust that is unable to deal with the dilemmas of our digital, informationage
economy: economic concentration in the hands of a few “Big Tech”
companies and manipulation—both economic and political—of the vast
quantities of data and opportunities said companies lord over. This
information, and the control over its dissemination and use, has led to the
undermining of the democratic process and small entrepreneurial
enterprise in the United States.