ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the free market camp. It argues that no practice that a manufacturer uses to distribute goods should be illegal. The chapter suggests that restricted dealing is just a way of competing, and that various forms of restricted dealing only serve to widen consumer choice. It deals with some common arguments against resale price maintainance and tying. The chapter examines the benefits of vertical practices, showing that restricted dealing may be a way of adding information to the "product package". It proposes five-part filtering test to separate the great number of nonharmful vertical practices from the rare number that evidence harm. Most vertical arrangements are procompetitive. The rules of litigation accordingly should be "stacked" so that they do not ensnare many of these beneficial practices just to make sure that the few anticompetitive ones are caught. Judges are free to employ the common law tradition to modify antitrust rules in response to firms' recognition.
