ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the antitrust laws' legislative histories. It examines that Congress passed the antitrust laws to further economic objectives, but primarily objectives of a distributive rather than of an efficiency nature. The chapter demonstrates that Congress intended to subordinate all other concerns to the basic purpose of preventing firms with market power from directly harming consumers. The antitrust laws were passed primarily to further what may be called a distributive goal, the goal of preventing unfair acquisitions of consumers' wealth by firms with market power. The chapter analyzes a horizontal merger resulting in a firm with monopoly power. It demonstrates that the Sherman Act was passed despite the possibility that its enforcement might impair, the efficiency of trusts, the form of industrial organization that in 1890 was thought to be most efficient. The chapter suggests that both distributive and efficiency considerations are meant to play a role in antitrust analysis.
