Michelle Meagher  🙋🏾‍♀️

I argue that we need to properly identify power and tie it to true accountability. Antitrust must fill the gaps left by a patchwork regulatory state, catching the residual corporate power that otherwise falls through the cracks.

This is the lesson we learn from looking at the interconnected histories of antitrust and corporate law. We need a backstop for corporate power when it threatens to overwhelm citizens and the state, and efficiencies cannot be a mitigating factor against the subversion of freedom.

We must incorporate "public policy" concerns into antitrust in order to properly identify the full scope of corporate power. When power is identified it should be dispersed through active antitrust enforcement (including breakups) or resolved through stakeholder remedies.

The ultimate backstop is the dissolution of the company. If a company can only exist by systematically breaching the public interest then it should not exist. That this feels like such a radical idea shows how unbalanced the relationship between corporation and state has become.

cc for interest @DanielDancrane @linamkhan @ZephyrTeachout @Econ_Marshall @sanjuktampaul @NathanTankus @RamsiWoodcock @johnmarknewman @superwuster @glenweyl @matthewstoller @ksabeelrahman