What are antitrust laws for, when competition is normal with businesses?
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For the most part antitrust laws are government solution to a government created problem, and as such rarely improve anything. The fact is that collusion rarely lasts because one of the companies eventually figures out that it’s more profitable to undercut the other. Or other entrepreneurs discover a market that is artificially overpriced and do the same thing.
The real motivation for the act was not to break trusts, as the name implies, but to punish a political rival of Senator Sherman for blocking his bid for the presidency. President Benjamin Harrison confirmed as much after the passage of the bill, stating, “John Sherman has fixed General Alger” (the political rival in question).
Like almost every government bill it is bestowed with a name that evokes a certain picture with which no rational person could disagree, but in reality does little, if anything to live up that name.
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