The current debate tends to underestimate the virtues of the consumer welfare standard.
Before discussing the merits of the consumer welfare standard, it is important to understand where the standard came from.
As a result, the consumer welfare standard has helped reduce abuses in the enforcement of the antitrust laws.
Populists regard the consumer welfare standard as inadequate because it pays no attention to the political dimension of antitrust.
Indeed, antitrust practitioners, scholars, and economists (regardless of political party affiliation) who specialize in the area today nearly universally acknowledge that the adoption of the consumer welfare standard transformed antitrust law and the lives of consumers for the better.
For its various imperfections and debates around the margins, there is widespread agreement that the adoption of the consumer welfare standard and the rejection of the earlier approach made consumers better off.
Indeed, the rise of the consumer welfare standard and modern antitrust's exclusive focus on economic concerns is attributable primarily to the failure of an antitrust regime focused on simultaneously achieving a hodgepodge of social goals.
If history is any guide, modifications to the consumer welfare standard may not only be something to watch for, but a basis for reflecting upon how agency officials and the courts would draw the line between anticompetitive and procompetitive conduct.
Populists regard the consumer welfare standard as inadequate, because it pays no attention to the political dimension of antitrust — in particular, to the connection between economic concentration and corporate political power.
Hipster Antitrust proposals that advocate for mixing or replacing the consumer welfare standard with vague new standards and broad discretion would, ironically, invite rent-seeking and grant large, powerful corporations the ability to exert undue influence over the antitrust agencies' decision-making.
