One of the conservative's legal project over the past 50 years main goals has been to maintain a Borkian consumer harm standard for anti-trust. With the current SCOTUS, I don't see much of a realistic path for this.
Bork argued that antitrust law shouldn't inherently challenge bigness. He felt that the antitrust should seek to maximize consumer welfare. That's been interpreted by the courts to mean lower prices, but any economist worth their salt will say consumer choice is an aspect of consumer welfare.
It doesn't matter if Little Caesars pizza is the cheapest option, if there aren't any other pizza options, consumer welfare is severely negatively impacted because some consumers won't like Little Caesars.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg—despite being lionized by liberals—was an extremely pro-business justice who played a strong role in the Supreme Court siding with businesses in all but one antitrust case from 1995ish on. With her gone, I think this case may actually have a chance
The cynic in me says that Thomas is open to the discussion to the extent that it hurts companies that he percieves as his enemies, and will shut it down as soon as it covers companies that he considers on his side.
One good thing about the Court is that you can go ahead and just read what he writes and develop your own opinion on what he thinks and why. It’s all public and free.
A test I have for any article about the Court or its Justices is a really simple one: if the article does link to the Opinion, it’s pushing an agenda or a narrative. Once you do this you’ll probably discover that well over half of the articles about the Supreme Court are not worth reading.
That would stand out among SC justices as abnormal, they're usually only biased when it can be consistent, which covers most cases but doesn't go so far as applying different law to different companies.
> Ruth Bader Ginsburg—despite being lionized by liberals—was an extremely pro-business justice who played a strong role in the Supreme Court siding with businesses in all but one antitrust case
I googled this because it seemed interesting.
The first two articles I looked up emphasize how little influence she had on anti-trust cases. At her hearing she said "Antitrust … is not my strong suit." It seems like she went along with other more experienced judges in this area such as Scalia or Breyer who is noted for being very business-friendly.
Where is your idea that Ginsburg was the lynchpin for weak anti-trust rulings coming from?
You identify an important point about Ginsburg, but the current court is mostly a creation of "the Federalist Society". Although these jokers claimed to be concerned about abortion when weaseling their way up the judiciary system, they are all far more concerned with Borkism. Compare the number of abortion cases that reach the Supreme Court with the number of cases focused on business, IP, monopoly, consumer rights, liability, etc.
And although it's not necessarily a liberal vs. conservative issue, it would be deceptive not to point out that this is entirely because of the Republican justices.
The current court was preceded by a far less conservative court which did precisely dick about the problem for decades. Stop trying to frame this as a party issue when this is a class issue -- and the bourgeoisie controls both sides of the aisle.
I linked to a summary of a UVA paper evaluating the SC decisions of the last century or so and graphing them as pro or anti-corporatist, which concluded that the current court is the most pro-business ever. You have handwaved that it maybe used to be this bad. If you have some sort of basis for your belief, I would be happy to consider it.
The basis of my belief is the undeniable fact that prior courts didn't do a damn thing about it despite decades of opportunities. This simply isn't a partisan issue, no matter how much certain petit bourgeoisie-aligned persons would like to frame it otherwise. This is entirely about the uniparty protecting its class interest in ensuring monopolies are not confronted -- unless they pissed off the wrong party member, of course.
I would love to continue arguing, but alas, you say your point is undeniable, and thus, I cannot deny it. Curses, I am foiled by this one simple trick that policy debaters did not want you to know!
I think polarization on social issues has made people forget that the conservative position / the liberal position isn't always a world ending flamewar.
Taking the position that market intervention isn't needed until consumer harm can be sufficiently demonstrated vs. market intervention is needed when any firm wields monopolistic power is a discussion about the role of government and what produces the best outcomes, not "look this side bad."
Agreed on the general point, but it's undeniable that corporatism has used conservative politics as the means to the end they desire. See also: every culture war, the fact that the only thing Republicans can agree on are court appointees and tax cuts.
Google is a global company with huge EU antitrust issues as well as the advertising monopoly dispute in the US which is more of a rival corporations issue than a political one. They are now looking too big to succeed...
