Posted by The Intercept
Orrin Hatch, the original antitrust hipster, turns on his own kind
By David Dayen
Before congress checked out for the August recess, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, made sure to use some of the waning moments to come to the defense of giant Internet platforms, contradicting a long history of concern over the power of tech monopolies, a concern that lasted right up through last year.
In a Thursday speech, Hatch warned about the rise of “hipster antitrust,” a flailing attempt at a derisive term for a group of experts and observers who look uneasily at growing concentrations in every sector of our economy. These hipsters — for the sake of sanity let’s just call them anti-monopolists or the New Brandeis movement — believe that antitrust officials at the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have for the past 35 years viewed the question of anti-competitive mergers and industries too narrowly, guided by something called the “consumer welfare” standard.
