Americans have long appealed to images of free competition in calling for free enterprise, freedom of contract, free labor, free trade, and free speech. This imagery has retained its appeal in myriad aspects of public policy--for example, Senator Sherman's Anti-Trust Act of 1890, Justice Holmes's metaphorical marketplace of ideas, and President Reagan's rhetoric of deregulation. In Competition Policy in America, 1888-1992, Rudolph Peritz explores the durability of free competition imagery by tracing its influences on public policy. Looking at congressional debates and hearings, administrative agency activities, court opinions, arguments of counsel, and economic, legal, and political scholarship, he finds that free competition has actually evoked two different visions--freedom not only from oppressive government, but also from private economic power. He shows how the discourse of free competition has mediated between commitments to individual liberty and rough equality--themselves unstable over time. This rhetorical approach allows us to understand, for example, that the Reagan and Carter programs of deregulation, both inspired by the rhetoric of free competition, were driven by fundamentally different visions of political economy. Peritz's historical inquiry into competition policy as a series of government directives, inspired by two complex yet distinct and sometimes contradictory visions of free competition, provides an indispensable framework for understanding modern political economy-- whether political campaign finance reform, corporate takeover regulation, or current attitudes toward the New Deal Legacy. Competition Policy in America will be of great interest to lawyers, historians, economists, sociologists, and policy makers in both government and business.

Committee Serial No. 14

This shortform book presents key peer-reviewed research selected by expert series editors and contextualised by new analysis from each author on how the specific field addressed has evolved. The book features contributions on the history of government-business relations, regional and local business relationships, the development and formation of Silicon Valley, and the rise and fall of the US machine tool industry after the Second World. Of interest to business and economic historians, this shortform book also provides analysis that will be valuable reading across the social sciences.

Committee Serial No. 14. Reviews effectiveness of antitrust laws, and suggested revisions to the laws from representatives of educational institutions, business and government; pt. 2A-B, Reviews economic concentration and monopolistic practices relation to procurement practices, small businesses, patent right restrictions, Federal transportation rate-making regulations, and special antitrust exemptions. Includes summary and digest of testimony for parts 2-A and 2-B (p. 1-160); pt.4A, Includes digest of testimony (p. 1-65); pt.5, Considers legislation to make fines for certain antitrust violations triple the amount of damages; pt.6A, Reviews newsprint shortages and industry economic concentration. Focuses on Canadian and Newfoundland newsprint export and production practices' impact on domestic industry. Includes digest of testimony (p. 1-85).