Anti-Trust has always been a mechanism for politics to go after companies they did not like. The first Anti-Trust law (state level) happened because Butchers f

Anti-Trust has always been a mechanism for politics to go after companies they did not like. The first Anti-Trust law (state level) happened because Butchers faced unfair competition from centralized slaughter houses (the innovation they were fighting was refrigerated train transport). You can go threw most of these laws and see that they were advocated and often financed by those industries that were being crushed by better performing competition. The progressive would use Anti-Trust far all manner of political reasons. Sometimes cases where two merging companies didn't even capture 20% of the market, but it was opposed by well connected friends of the Progressive Party. Standard Oil, now the bullet prove argument that Anti-Trust is good, actually delivered falling prices and higher quality to consumers threw-out its existence. They were opposed by politically connected oil producers and rail companies who wanted to keep prices high. Under modern Anti-Trust law they could not be fined, and common sense would suggest the same. France is a great example of using Anti-Trust to benefit French firms and oppose non-French competition. Arbitrary enforcement is a key tool for them, the rules are vague enough that many could be found behaving anti-competitively but few are fined. Anti-Trust is not what stands between capitalism and what Marx falsely believed about the 'inherent centralization of capital' but the waste majority of the time its a political power tool yielded by bureaucrats and politicians to protect their friends.