SuperCitizen

Modern antitrust has been dominated since the 1980s by the "consumer welfare standard": mergers and conduct are anticompetitive only if they raise prices or reduce output. Under this framework, enforcement has been relatively narrow.

The "neo-Brandeisian" or "new antitrust" movement (Lina Khan, Tim Wu, others) argues this standard is too narrow — that concentration harms innovation, labor markets, supply-chain resilience, and political power even when consumer prices fall.

Major recent cases include FTC and DOJ actions against Google, Meta, Apple, Amazon, and Live Nation. Bipartisan congressional bills (American Innovation and Choice Online Act, Open App Markets Act) have advanced but not passed.

Spectrum of framings

How adherents on each side of the conventional left / center / right spectrum frame this issue — written so each camp would recognize the framing as charitable.

left

Progressives broadly favor aggressive antitrust enforcement against tech, healthcare, and food firms.

center

Moderates often favor enforcement modernization without abandoning the consumer-welfare standard entirely.

right

Conservative views split: some favor aggressive enforcement (especially against tech firms perceived as biased); others defer to free-market outcomes.

Perspectives

Each perspective is presented in terms its advocates would recognize, with the concerns they treat as paramount. None is endorsed.

Neo-Brandeisian advocates
Concentration harms innovation, workers, suppliers, and democracy — not just consumers. Antitrust should consider full effects on market power, not just price.
- Tech-platform dominance
- Labor-market monopsony
- Supply-chain resilience
Consumer-welfare defenders
The consumer-welfare standard provides predictable, evidence-based enforcement. Expanding antitrust to political and structural concerns produces inconsistent decisions and chills pro-consumer innovation.
- Predictable, rules-based enforcement
- Avoiding politicized antitrust
- Recognizing pro-consumer scale
Conservative anti-Big-Tech
Major tech platforms exercise quasi-governmental power over speech and commerce. Aggressive antitrust action against them, including breakups, restores market competition and free expression.
- Tech-platform censorship
- Conservative voice in market gatekeepers
- Restoring small-business competition

Voices on this issue2

Commonly-cited public figures who have taken a position on this issue. Grouped by their conventional left/center/right lean. Tap a voice to see their full position record.

left2

Discuss this issue with the Coach →