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Matt Stoller has published dozens of whiny posts about supposed monopolies. Yet, he has yet to once mention the "consumer welfare standard" [1] because it would

Matt Stoller has published dozens of whiny posts about supposed monopolies. Yet, he has yet to once mention the "consumer welfare standard" [1] because it would blow the thesis apart in every single post. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Amattstoller.substack.com%2C+consumer+welfare+standard&oq=site%3Amattstoller.substack.com%2C+consumer+welfare+standard&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.7464j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Amattstoller.substack....

rmrfstar 6y ago
He mentions it all the time. The index to his book has 11 references to the "consumer rights movement". A central premise of his book is that the "Watergate babies" shifted antitrust law from a focus on democratic control of corporate power to so-called "consumer rights".
- dalbasal 6y ago
  Also, looking at antitrust purely through a price lens is extremely narrow, and practically unintelligible in most big-ticket modern examples. In the netscape-msft case, prices didn't even exist. They don't exist or aren't central in a whole lot of modern businesses. How do you analyze FB in terms of the CWS model? It's like trying to examine the health of a rose bush by taking its temperature. It's a pretty good example of intellectual failure in economics, compounded by legislative/industry agendas. Defining reality using a model rather than the other way around. The model is good at measuring market power of something like a centralized buyer of agricultural commodities. The more unlike an agricultural cartel the industry, the lower the "evidence" for monopoly.
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dredmorbius 6y ago
An excellent backgrounder on how the shift to an exclusive focus on "consumer welfare" came to be, watch or listen to "This is Neoibeeralism": https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLATIVW2S3zKMbVlnAHAPR0sHZisHJl4fd https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLATIVW2S3zKMbVlnAHAPR0sHZ... Bork's tedious tome on antitrust was birthed directly from Aaron Director's Antitrust Project at the University of Chicago. (Bork credits Director fatuously in his introductin.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Director https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Director

rmrfstar 6y ago

He mentions it all the time. The index to his book has 11 references to the "consumer rights movement". A central premise of his book is that the "Watergate babies" shifted antitrust law from a focus on democratic control of corporate power to so-called "consumer rights".

dalbasal 6y ago
Also, looking at antitrust purely through a price lens is extremely narrow, and practically unintelligible in most big-ticket modern examples. In the netscape-msft case, prices didn't even exist. They don't exist or aren't central in a whole lot of modern businesses. How do you analyze FB in terms of the CWS model? It's like trying to examine the health of a rose bush by taking its temperature. It's a pretty good example of intellectual failure in economics, compounded by legislative/industry agendas. Defining reality using a model rather than the other way around. The model is good at measuring market power of something like a centralized buyer of agricultural commodities. The more unlike an agricultural cartel the industry, the lower the "evidence" for monopoly.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

dredmorbius 6y ago

An excellent backgrounder on how the shift to an exclusive focus on "consumer welfare" came to be, watch or listen to "This is Neoibeeralism": https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLATIVW2S3zKMbVlnAHAPR0sHZisHJl4fd https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLATIVW2S3zKMbVlnAHAPR0sHZ... Bork's tedious tome on antitrust was birthed directly from Aaron Director's Antitrust Project at the University of Chicago. (Bork credits Director fatuously in his introductin.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Director https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Director