Anti-trust in me Can the federal bureaucracy resuscitate market dynamism in America?

T WO TRENDS in American capitalism in past decades are too stark to be ignored. The first is rising market concentration—a phenomenon observed in 75% of industries ranging from those that traffic in bodily fluids (kidney dialysis and blood-plasma donation centres) to those that traffic in data (broadband providers, credit-card companies, and the tech giants roaming Silicon Valley). The second trend is the declining share, up until the mid-2010s, of spoils going to the suppliers of labour. Whether these are unhealthy indicators has been hotly debated. Some argue that intense competition unleashed by globalisation and technological progress may destroy the least efficient firms, leaving only a small cadre of the most productive (the “winner take most” model). Others insist that it is a sure sign of market sclerosis.

On July 9th President Joe Biden indicated that he identifies fully with the critics. That was when he signed an executive order arguing that a lack of competition had been increasing prices for consumers and squashing wages for workers, and stating that the federal government would not stand for it. Casting himself as a latter-day Roosevelt (both Teddy and Franklin enjoyed a trust bust), Mr Biden vowed that the whole federal government would devote itself to “address over-concentration, monopolisation and unfair competition”. His order specified 72 initiatives for more than a dozen federal agencies to work on, alongside the creation of a new competition council made up of cabinet members and senior White House staff.

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