Antitrust or Competition laws are never created/passed in the USA

[All Rounder]

If you are unaware, Antitrust laws as they are known in the United States are laws put in place to keep competition (As they are also known as) going between companies/corporations and putting restrictions on monopolies or the creation of them. The two most famous cases of monopolies in the USA are the Standard Oil Company and the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T).

Standard Oil Co. was one of the largest companies at the time, being one of the first multinational corporations on the market, it's reign as the head of petroleum products was cut short in 1911 with the SOC of New Jersery vs United States, which declared the Sherman Antitrust Act that dissolved the SOC and prevented the rise of another unregulated monopoly (As it was deemed to be and still is today). There were 34 companies created from the break-up, but only four exist today with most being mergers (ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP plc and Marathon Petroleum).

AT&T/Ma Bell was a regulated monopoly of phone and telegraph services and was subsequently broken up into seven "Baby Bell" phone companies and, if you can't guess, some of them turned into big companies. Verizon was once known as Bell Atlantic and AT&T was once known as Southwestern Bell, these companies are the last two Baby Bells around, having absorbed the others.

But let's say this never happens, because there are no antitrust or competition laws that are passed for some reason. What could the economic, political and militaristic effects be because of this?

 

[Skallagrim]

It depends on how and why this situation arises. That is: is antitrust prevented because the government is very, very supportive of big business... or because certain issues are tackled in another way?

One of the major problems of very big corporate powers is that they are also often in bed with government. That was as true in the late 19th century as it is today. The "big guys" have the influence to (literally or figuratively) buy influence. To lobby on their own behalf, to influence lawmaking-- in a way that the "little guys" can never dream of. Antitrust was directed againstb the very existence of these big corporate powers. But back in the day, there were plenty of reformers who were just as opposed to the incestuous relation between big business and government as they were opposed to big business itself - if not more opposed, in fact! (Many a socialist and anarchist considered the existing government merely a tool of the capitalist class, or even as a natural part of the capitalist system.)

Reformers introduced measures like antitrust in many countries around the same time, and often, it was at least partially an attempt to "take the wind from the sails" of the radicals.

So, really, there's two ways to go about this whole issue: either the government is indeed blatently pro-business and simply blocks all attempts to limit big business... or, reforms are introduced as in OTL, except different ones. For instance, instead of laws limiting the size of companies, there might be laws to create a sort of "separation of business and state". Anti-lobbying laws, if you will.

These two ways to make it happen would have dramatically different effects. The first one would probably end up being rather unpleasant. The second one... well, rather like OTL. In OTL, we have antitrust laws but lobbying is still relatively rampant. In that ATL, we'd have no antitrust, but lobbying would be way down, making it less simple for the big corporations to unduly influence policy and law. To me, this second scenario would be most interesting, because it expolres how different ways to tackle the same fundamental issue could work out.

I suspect you meant the first one, however, where big business "just" enjoys full governmental support. To get there, you could have the kind of government that supports that kind of policy to be in place for a long time. That by itself would be tricky, but assuming it can be done, you could easily see those administrations picking Supreme Court Justices who agree with such views. Then a big antitrust case on a state lever shows up, and the Supreme Court rules that all antitrust is unconstitutional. (The easiest way to get that ruling is to have them decide that corporations have rights: that since they are made of people, they enjoy all the rights that citizens enjoy. That kind of thing. That kind of precedent would make it nigh impossible to impose limitations on corporate power later on.)

Well, at least Ayn Rand will be happy, I suppose...

 

[Indicus]

The issue with this is that many early antitrust laws were created to bust unions, and only later used to bust corporations.

 

[Alexander the Average]

Have Edward Bellamy turn out to be right, with the vast majority of industry consolidating into fewer and fewer hands before falling under public ownership?

 

[All Rounder]

It depends on how and why this situation arises. That is: is antitrust prevented because the government is very, very supportive of big business... or because certain issues are tackled in another way?

One of the major problems of very big corporate powers is that they are also often in bed with government. That was as true in the late 19th century as it is today. The "big guys" have the influence to (literally or figuratively) buy influence. To lobby on their own behalf, to influence lawmaking-- in a way that the "little guys" can never dream of. Antitrust was directed against the very existence of these big corporate powers. But back in the day, there were plenty of reformers who were just as opposed to the incestuous relation between big business and government as they were opposed to big business itself - if not more opposed, in fact! (Many a socialist and anarchist considered the existing government merely a tool of the capitalist class, or even as a natural part of the capitalist system.)

Reformers introduced measures like antitrust in many countries around the same time, and often, it was at least partially an attempt to "take the wind from the sails" of the radicals.

So, really, there's two ways to go about this whole issue: either the government is indeed blatantly pro-business and simply blocks all attempts to limit big business... or, reforms are introduced as in OTL, except different ones. For instance, instead of laws limiting the size of companies, there might be laws to create a sort of "separation of business and state". Anti-lobbying laws, if you will.

These two ways to make it happen would have dramatically different effects. The first one would probably end up being rather unpleasant. The second one... well, rather like OTL. In OTL, we have antitrust laws but lobbying is still relatively rampant. In that ATL, we'd have no antitrust, but lobbying would be way down, making it less simple for the big corporations to unduly influence policy and law. To me, this second scenario would be most interesting, because it explores how different ways to tackle the same fundamental issue could work out.

I suspect you meant the first one, however, where big business "just" enjoys full governmental support. To get there, you could have the kind of government that supports that kind of policy to be in place for a long time. That by itself would be tricky, but assuming it can be done, you could easily see those administrations picking Supreme Court Justices who agree with such views. Then a big antitrust case on a state lever shows up, and the Supreme Court rules that all antitrust is unconstitutional. (The easiest way to get that ruling is to have them decide that corporations have rights: that since they are made of people, they enjoy all the rights that citizens enjoy. That kind of thing. That kind of precedent would make it nigh impossible to impose limitations on corporate power later on.)

Well, at least Ayn Rand will be happy, I suppose...

My idea is that an extremely pro business executive, legislative and judicial branch appears somewhere early on and slaps antitrust to the side, much like how slavery was proverbially given the boot for two decades before being talked about in the government, and we all know what that led to but instead of getting into conflict about the future branches opt to keep kicking it further down the road while building a case against antitrust laws till they have enough that the right case comes to the SCOTUS and they declare the whole thing (Like you suggested) unconstitutional, but discussing another separation of state would be interesting. I am just curious to read what could happen to the USA if there were a couple corporations controlling the products and distribution of such products and what impact it may have on the world. In fact, I think discussing a separation of state and business would be much more interesting.