A Study On The Transformation Of Antitrust's Goals In The Mid To Late 20th Century In US

The transformation of the American antitrust's goal is a constant game,trade-off,balance between different goals.However,the result is not a life-or-death struggle,not the goal to replace others,so that one goal disappeared.Historical facts proved that the transformation is ultimately manifested in the various objectives in different historical periods of antitrust's implementation in different considerations.The goal of justice that included decentralization of economic power and the maintenance of economic democracy dominated the antitrust's implementation after 30 years of World War ?;after the mid-1970s,economic efficiency stepped into the vision of judicial and law enforcement agencies and replaced the economic democracy to become the dominant goals of antitrust gradually.The transformation of the antitrust goals is the requirement of historical development and reflection of the development of political and economic situation in US.The end of World War ? to the late 1960s is the longest economic growth in history of US.Through the economic accumulation in war,the manipulation of the United Nations after the war and the construction of Bretton Woods System,US became the political and economic center of the western capitalist world.However,everything changed,after the 1970s.The reduction of productivity,the intensification of inflation,the deterioration of fiscal deficit and the pressure of global competition,the economy into a serious recession.The absolute advantage of US is difficult to continue.At the same time,the economic regulation ushered in a gradual relaxation movement after the economic crisis.The transformation of government functions and roles ushered in a relatively relaxed implementationation environment for the antitrust.Of course,the transformation of the goals could't be separated from the development of economic theory.And the rising of the Chicago School provided the theoretical support for the transformation.This is not only historical background but also the root causes for the transformation of antitrust's goals during this period.The transformation of the antitrust's goals in the mid to late 20th century can summarize the economic efficiency as the dominant goals of antitrust.In judicial,the court actually protected the small business in 1962 the Brown Shoes case in the name of protection for competition.In order to maintain a decentralized market structure and to prevent the concentration of economic power,economic efficiency brought by monopoly didn't become a defense of the subject,but became the object of attack.Because it would make a small competitor in a disadvantage.The situation led to a turning point in the wake of the deterioration of the economic in the 1970s:the Sylvania case used a large number of economic analysis methods,emphasized the analysis of transaction costs,re-located the goals of antitrust,revised the view of economic efficiency ignored in the previous period and established economic efficiency firstly in judicial.In enformance,the US authorities responded more slowly on the transformation of antitrust.The goals ushered in the gradual change untile conomic efficiency was used as a separate subject of monopoly defense in the 1984 Federal Merger Guidelines:the efficiency defense became the general rule in the 1984 Federal Merger Guidelines.Then,economic efficiency established the dominant position in enforcement of antitrust.The transformation of the goals about antitrust law in this period gave us a lot of revelations:the dual nature of monopoly doomed that the choice of the goals not only to balance the justice and efficiency,but also to balance the regional and cosmopolitan;the Act itself as a regulatory mechanism made adjustments in time,which must follow the role of government changes and the relaxation of economic regulation.Of course,the choice of antitrust goals must fit the market's demands under the support of the economic theory eventually.