Eye of the Beholder: Trends in the Political and Commercial World

In its simplest form, antitrust law refers to legislation that is designed to prevent the formation and spread of monopolies. At the core of such a law is the will to protect small businesses from being disadvantaged by unfair tactics, as well as to provide consumers with better price choices through fostering competition. In this entry, I shall debate the various ideologies that have underpinned changes in antitrust legislation, with an emphasis on the branches that have emerged from the famed Chicago School, and I shall place these in the context of the Reagan Administration, which is an era that many scholars consider to be a watershed period for antitrust policy. Additionally, I shall argue that the as-of-yet infant Neo-Chicago School could serve as an apposite framework for understanding the modernisation of antitrust law and as an apt guide for future antitrust proceedings. As such, in comparison with my previous entries, this one will admittedly be more ideologically discursive,