The Effects of the Zeitgeist on American Economic Policy

In the 40s and 50s, when I think under anybody's recognition, America was a capitalist country. It's still around with very high levels of antitrust cases. Robert Bork is certainly someone who we tend to place a lot of blame at his feet for the significant change in the Zeitgeist. We had 40 years of rolling back the merger guidelines making it much easier for companies to merge in the 1980s. The consumer welfare standard has failed even by its own standards because in 95% of cases where you had a merger that led to six or fewer competitors, prices rose following the merger.