Chicago neoliberals abandoned antitrust hostility to monopoly within a decade

Evidence

In a period of just ten years (1946–1956), the contents of liberalism at Chicago underwent a radical transformation. Director and other neoliberal advocates and converts no longer regarded monopoly as the great enemy of democracy, much less a force to be broken up by the hammer of U.S. antitrust law. Rather, they argued that not only was monopoly not deleterious to the operation of the market, but also that it was a negligible symptom attributable to ill-functioning ham-fisted activities of government. Moreover, they no longer regarded large corporations as corpulent political bodies that would not be toppled—even under the pressure of market forces. Rather, they characterized corporations—even behemoth corporations—as relatively benign entities that naturally gave rise to the market conditions that would eventually undermine them. In other words, the string of victories that allowed a large corporation to dominate the market would invariably be pyrrhic victories. In the light of these neoliberal tenets, exclusionary practices—practices typically regarded as pernicious to the operation of the market—were portrayed as basically short-lived price discrimination, ephemeral to the operation of the market. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1153

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Chicago neoliberals reversed course to treat monopoly as benign and rarely present — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1120; 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; Ordoliberals and Chicagoans irreconcilably diverged on economic power and monopoly — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1154 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberalism inverted classical liberalism by defending monopoly and corporate power #corroborates (0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 175
• Ordoliberals and Chicagoans irreconcilably diverged on economic power and monopoly #responds-to (0.82) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1154
• Neoliberal ideology narrowed antitrust enforcement to consumer prices alone #expands (0.80) — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 461