Talk:Sherman Antitrust Act
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[edit] error?
I've just looked over the Enforcement section and I think there may be a problem:
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- The Enforcement section distinguishes criminal and civil suits and then says that civil suits are different because they use the rule of reason. As I understand it, the rule of reason is generally applied when the conduct does not meet the per se standard. Accordingly there may be a rule of reason analysis under either a civil or criminal case.
Steptoe 05:04, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Deletion of reference to "Trust companies"
Dear fellow editors. I have deleted the reference and link to Trust companies in the first paragraph of the main article on the Sherman Antitrust Act. The Act was not aimed at "trust companies" as that term is used in the "trust company" article. The Act was aimed at combinations in restraint of trade, monopolies, etc., regardless of whether in the form of a trust or corporation or any other form. Of course, if a particular "trust company" were to violate the Act, then the Act would obviously apply to that trust company.
The Act used the word "antitrust" because the main genesis for the law was the activity of the Standard Oil trust. The Standard Oil trust was controlled by John D. Rockefeller and his associates. At the time the trust was set up in the 1800s, corporations were much more limited in what they could do. That's why Rockefeller used what was, at that time, the more "flexible" vehicle of a trust. The Sherman Antitrust Act, however, was not aimed specifically at "trusts" or "trust companies."
By the way, by the time the antitrust laws were finally brought to bear to break up the Standard Oil group, Standard Oil was no longer using the "trust" vehicle any more. At the time of the Supreme Court's decision (in 1911), the parent entity was the "Standard Oil Company of New Jersey" (later called Exxon, and now called ExxonMobil), which was and is a corporation, not a trust.
Oops, I forgot to sign my comments! The above comments were inserted by me on 2 March 2006. Yours, Famspear 19:05, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] I edited the "Criticism" section to make it clearer and a bit less biased
The second paragraph began with the sentence "However, even some of those who grant that refraining from antitrust regulation is beneficial for consumers, still favor the act for protectionist reasons," which implied that you were either against antitrust laws or pro-protectionism. The paragraph then went on to discuss competition and protectionism was not discussed again until the third paragraph.
I also tried to make it clearer where the authors were expressing opinions, not facts.
I still think there are two major flaws with this section -- 1) this is more a discussion of antitrust laws, not the Sherman Act itself. These arguments should be moved to the antitrust page where there's a rebuttal in the form of the "Rationale" section 2) two of the quotes are from 1890. No offense to the good folks at the Cato Institute, but I don't think tariffs are still the hot button issue today that they were back then. In fact, there's a strong argument that antitrust laws are anti-protectionist -- Reagan's rationale for decreased enforcement of antitrust laws was increased competition by Japanese firms.
Spambi 25 June 2006
[edit] OPEC analogy
I think saying Standard Oil in the 19th century was the OPEC of the 1970s is a flawed analogy. OPEC is primarily based on oil production, unlike Rockefeller who started off with refining and transport. Additionally, less than half of world oil production is by OPEC member states, while Standard Oil was a true monopoly in their field. This is not to mention differences between a corporation and loose alliance of states. Ec- 01:04, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
