By Harry First
Before there was Hipster antitrust there was Woodstock Antitrust. Flourishing in the decade from 1969 to 1979, Woodstock antitrust sought to take on the central issues in antitrust. Looking back we can see a program of enforcement and proposed legislation that constituted a radical effort to fix antitrust’s shortcomings — the inability to stop the increase in concentration in the economy, or deal with durable monopolies, or cut through doctrine to reach tight oligopolies. This essay reviews some of the efforts of Woodstock antitrust and suggests how Woodstock still echoes in today’s antitrust reform efforts.
