Chicago economic theory was to displace fair-conduct rules as the basis for antitrust decisions

Evidence

In this prescient final paragraph, Director and Levi laid a foundational neoliberal premise, which would develop into a more extreme form in the coming years: Antitrust law should utilize economic theory, and Director and Levi had in mind the special brand of economic theory they espoused—not the versions of imperfect competition theory espoused by the Cowles Commission or MIT (Mirowski 2002). That is, when courts decide cases, reformulated Chicago economic theory should be employed as background theory. This implies that notions of rules of fair conduct should not be the sole basis of antitrust law decisions, which included principles such as small businesses should have the right to compete. This neoliberal premise underlay many of the articles of the Antitrust Project. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1147

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Mirowski’s account of the Chicago school and the Cowles Commission’s rival econometrics program. — connects to: The Chicago faculty instilled price-system conservatism into its graduate students — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 89; Chicago antitrust reformers rejected per se illegality for exclusionary business practices — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1082; Chicago School antitrust argued monopoly power could not spread via listed abusive practices — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1132 (+3 more)
• DEFINE: Clarifies what ‘economic theory as background law’ meant concretely for the Chicago neoliberal project.

Broader Connections

• Antitrust law’s presumptions cannot be isolated from prevailing economic theory #corroborates (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1146
• Free-market economic theory now functions as the logic of judicial reasoning #expands (0.80) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 637