Statist claim: Anti-trust laws are necessary.
Fallacy:
Without antitrust laws, we would all die.Response:
The Antitrust laws—an unenforceable, uncompliable, unjudicable mess of contradictions—have for decades kept American businessmen under a silent, growing reign of terror. Yet these laws were created and, to this day, are upheld by the “conservatives,” as a grim monument to their lack of political philosophy, of economic knowledge and of any concern with principles. Under the Antitrust laws, a man becomes a criminal from the moment he goes into business, no matter what he does. For instance,
- If he charges prices which some bureaucrats judge as too high, he can be prosecuted for monopoly or for a successful “intent to monopolize”;
- if he charges prices lower than those of his competitors, he can be prosecuted for “unfair competition” or “restraint of trade”;
- if he charges the same prices as his competitors, he can be prosecuted for “collusion” or “conspiracy.”
There is only one difference in the legal treatment accorded to a criminal or to a businessman: the criminal’s rights are protected much more securely and objectively than the businessman’s. (Ayn Rand lexicon)
America's Persecuted Minority: Big Business by Ayn Rand.