Beyond the Rhetoric: An Inquiry into the Goal of the Sherman Act

The Sherman Antitrust Act is now more than a century old, yet debate still continues about its original goals. Previous authors, focusing on the substance of the 1890 debate, have reached various conclusions about these goals. Each of these conclusions provides different implications for antitrust policy. Currently, the debate focuses on whether the purpose of the Sherman Act is to maximize economic efficiency or the welfare of consumers. The aim of this book is to reach beyond the rhetoric and discuss the institutional context of the Sherman Act to discern between these two hypotheses. This analysis will imply that the primary goal of the Sherman Act was to promote economic efficiency.