The New Thinking on Antitrust Is More Wrong Than Right
Lina Khan’s approach to regulating Big Tech is misguided. The best measure of market abuse is still consumer harm.
As if to prove her point.
Photographer: Saul Loeb-Pool/Getty Images
Big Tech got some good news yesterday when a U.S. district judge dismissed two antitrust cases brought against Facebook by the Federal Trade Commission and a group of states. Curiously, the ruling may also be greeted as good news by the Enemies of Big Tech, who say that existing law is not up to the task of prosecuting monopolies and favor a radically different approach.
It so happens that the most prominent advocate of this approach is the new chairwoman of the FTC. Lina Khan is a celebrated young legal scholar whose paper “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox” (published four years ago, when she was 27) made the case for a thoroughgoing reappraisal of competition policy. Khan’s paper and the rest of the new antitrust literature is valuable — but its prescriptions aren’t persuasive. As a guide for policy, the old approach is a lot closer to being right.