By Daren Bakst & Gabriella Beaumont-Smith (The Heritage Foundation)
Some legislators, especially on the far Left, have set their sights on making radical changes to federal antitrust law. They seek to weaponize antitrust law, such as by making it much easier for the federal government to wield antitrust power to reshape industries and the entire economy. This is a serious threat that could give the far Left its most powerful tool to radically change the American economic system and even to achieve non-economic ideological objectives.
Conservatives are right to be concerned with Big Tech and its chilling of speech, but weaponized antitrust will not solve the speech problems. Conservatives must stick to their core principles. This includes rejecting central planning, defending the consumer welfare standard, and fighting efforts to punish economic success. Conservatives should also aggressively push an agenda that reduces government intervention that hinders competition in the first place, and fight cronyism and corporate welfare at every turn.
