Antitrust's Greatest Hits

Reason, Nov, 2001 by David B. Kopel, Joseph Bast

The scaremongers appear not to have suffered any loss in credibility. Steven Levy, the writer who warned that we'd all be using "Bill Dollars" by now because of the Microsoft Network, is still sharing his expertise with Newsweek's readers. In June 2000 he penned a cover story advising Bill Gates to capitulate to most of the government's demands. Similarly, Sun's Chairman Scott McNealy applauded Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's Microsoft breakup order as a tool to "protect Internet technologies from becoming the proprietary presence of any one company.

A close look at antitrust's greatest hits--the cases of Standard Oil, Alcoa, and even AT&T--reveals a pattern of arbitrary rulings, disregard for consumers, and political interference with the administration of justice. The much shorter history of the Microsoft case has exposed the same injustices, along with the series of embarrassing exaggerations and falsehoods espoused by Microsoft's critics. Where are Microsoft Network, Channels, and Sidewalk today? All have disappeared, become irrelevant, or been radically transformed by competition and changing technology. The Internet remains free and decentralized, and for good reasons: Microsoft cannot "leverage" its dominance in a few markets into control over Internet access or content. To claim otherwise might sell newsmagazines or flummox congressmen--but it is hardly realistic.

David B. Kopel is the director of the Center on the Digital Economy at the Heartland Institute. Joseph Bast is president of the Heartland Institute. This article is adapted from Antitrust After Microsoft: The Obsolescence of Antitrust in the Digital Era.