CRAIGforCONGRESS

Missouri's 7th District, U.S. House of Representatives

  
 

 

 

Congressional Issues 2012
DOMESTIC CHAOS,

GOVERNMENT STYLE
Antitrust



Congress should
  • repeal the Sherman Act of 1890,
  • repeal the Clayton Act of 1914,
  • repeal the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914,
  • repeal the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936,
  • repeal the Celler-Kefauver Act of 1950,
  • repeal the Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act of 1975, and
  • repeal the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act of 1976.

On this subject I am reminded of a joke that Walter Block gave in this [MP3] fun interview hosted by Scott Horton. He originally gave this joke to a bunch of anti-trust lawyers and economists. . .

First joke is that there are three prisoners in the gulag in the former Soviet Union. The three find out why each of them is there. The first said that he came late to work and was accused of cheating the State out of labor. The second guy said that he came early and was accused of trying to out-compete his comrades. The third guy said that he came to work everyday and exactly on time, and the KGB accused him of owning a Western wristwatch.

Second joke is that there are three prisoners in the U.S. They were all in jail for economic crimes of violating monopoly laws. First guy said that he charged higher prices than anyone else and the government then accused him of price gouging and profiteering. Second guy charged lower prices than anyone else and they accused him of predatory and cutthroat pricing. And the third guy said that he charged the same prices as everyone else and they accused him of collusion and price fixing.

The first joke got some blithe laughs, but not the second one. They knew that the truth revealed in the second joke would mean the end of them. As Dr. Block says in the interview, we can have a justifiable and definable law against something like murder, but this is not the case with antitrust laws. These laws should not pass our initial olfactory impression.

National Platform of the Libertarian Party
Adopted in Convention, May 2004, Atlanta Georgia

II. Trade and the Economy

Monopolies

The Issue: We recognize that government is the source of monopoly, through its grants of legal privilege to special interests in the economy.

The Principle: Anti-trust laws do not prevent monopoly, but foster it by limiting competition. We defend the right of individuals to form corporations, cooperatives and other types of companies based on voluntary association.

Solutions: We condemn all coercive monopolies. In order to abolish them, we advocate a strict separation of business and State. Laws of incorporation should not include grants of monopoly privilege. In particular, we would eliminate special limits on the liability of corporations for damages caused in non-contractual transactions. We also oppose state or federal limits on the size of private companies and on the right of companies to merge. We further oppose efforts, in the name of social responsibility or any other reason, to expand federal chartering of corporations into a pretext for government control of business.

Transitional Solutions: We call for the repeal of all anti-trust laws, including the Robinson-Patman Act, which restricts price discounts, and the Sherman and Clayton Anti-Trust acts. We further call for the abolition of both the Federal Trade Commission and the anti-trust division of the Department of Justice.

 


Government IS a monopoly.


Next Cabinet Level Department: Labor

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