A Time for Choosing
Plus: Calvin Coolidge, Andrew Mellon, and the central planning of dairy cows.
My regular reader(s) know well the follies of modern progressive antitrust, known as Neo-Brandeisianism, or “hipster antitrust,” and driven forward by (now former) Biden-appointed officials Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter.
In January, Donald Trump became president, and Khan and Kanter became unemployed. However, the noises emitted by the Trump antitrust brigades in large part seem to echo those of the previous administration. A fuller consideration of these commonalities will appear in a forthcoming op-ed — which will be what PhD economics call “a doozy” — but I hazarded a preliminary comparison in The Daily Economy:
Reference to the Republican Party’s three greatest presidents can serve as a tool with which to judge and anticipate the still unsettled course of antitrust enforcement in the second Trump administration. Trumpian antitrusters have professed their intent to break from policies of the Biden appointees Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter. However, the 47th president’s enforcement resembles the central planning of the 46th far more than his administration would likely care to confess.
The administration is still young, however, just beginning its fifth month. Time remains for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ)’s Antitrust Division to unscramble themselves and ground policy in the sensible, pro-competitive, and constrained theories of regulation propounded for decades by antitrusters of both parties. The Trump administration can restore the balance that prevailed until the revolutions during the Biden years. It is, to invoke Ronald Reagan, a time for choosing.
Fresh off four years of standing athwart Khan and Kanter, some might find it odd that conservatives have begun mimicking their erstwhile nemeses. Indeed, Trump officials have begun to borrow talking points from their Democratic predecessors. Inexplicably, the Trump FTC and DOJ chose to retain the Biden-era joint merger guidelines. That guidance, breaking with decades-old policies, aimed to subject more mergers and acquisitions to the government’s veto.
…
Calvin Coolidge’s maxim, “If you see 10 troubles coming down the road, you can be sure 9 will go in the ditch and you have only one to battle with,” should guide antitrust enforcers. Market churn and creative destruction generally demonstrate the myopia of panicked assumptions that some firm has secured an unshakable market share or has gained too much power to be left alone. Running up the road to take the offensive against every far-off trouble cannot but damage the economy. Technocrats — whether of the right or of the left — cannot know enough, or foresee well enough, to plan an economy. Worse, doing so erodes the economic freedoms and property rights embedded in the American philosophy of justice and government.
For Trump’s antitrusters, it is, indeed, a time for choosing.
Who ought to be considered the third in the Republican presidential triumvirate? And how do his words cast light on the murkiness of modern antitrust?
Some Wisdom
Calvin Coolidge understood the fundamentals of free enterprise and the purpose of government better than perhaps any other president. In a 1923 encomium to private insurance — imagine such a speech being given today! — Coolidge had this to say:
Insurance is the modern method by which men make the uncertain certain, and the unequal equal. It is the means by which success is almost guaranteed. It is part charity and part business, but all common sense. Through its operation the strong contribute to the support of the weak, and the weak secure, not by favor but by right, duly purchased and paid for, the support of the strong. Every insurance policy is a declaration of independence, a charter of economic freedom. He who holds one has overcome adversity.
The principle upon which this proceeds is all very plain. It has its foundation in thrift. Everyone knows that it is not what is earned, but what is saved which measures the difference between success and failure. This is a difference so slight from day to day as to seem unimportant and of no consequence, but in the aggregate of even a few years it amounts to a sum of great importance. The ability to save is based entirely upon self-control. The possession of that capacity is the main element of character. It passes over at once into the realm of good citizenship. He who sells an insurance policy sells a certificate of character, an evidence of good citizenship, an unimpeachable title to the right of self-government.
…
This stupendous development is one of the best illustrations of the success in practice of the theory of our institutions. They all rest on a very high estimation of the power of mankind. It is believed that they have the ability for self-support and that, therefore, their natural state is that of independence. It is believed that they have the capacity for self-control and that, therefore, they are entitled to complete jurisdiction over their government. The principle is that in all things they are the best able to own, control and manage their own affairs. The marvelous extension of insurance bears most impressive testimony of the striking success of this system in the economic life of the nation. The great achievements in this field have been made by the people themselves. The assumption of the necessary costs and burdens have all been voluntary. By the free action of the individual, he makes a contribution to society, over the extent of which he himself has sole determination. He received from society a corresponding support to be applied wheresoever he shall direct. Here is no interposition of a superior force, no mandate of the law, no weak dependence upon government, but the self-directed and vigorous action of the individual himself working out his own destiny. What no government was ever able to do for its subjects, the people have done for themselves.
The strength of this whole movement, the virility of this entire principle, is revealed in the fact that it is not imposed upon the people, but results entirely from their own deep and abiding convictions. Such a foundation never fails.
Some Beauty
The National Gallery of Art is a gift to the American people given by a great man and great American, Andrew Mellon. The inscription behind the front desk reads thus:
Some Humor
To remain on theme, Ogden Nash wrote this stanza in his poem about the technocratic hubris of Franklin Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration, which sought quixotically to depress production to promote economic recovery:
Mumbledy pumbledy, my red cow, She’s cooperating now. At first she didn’t understand That milk production must be planned; She didn’t understand at first She either had to plan or burst, But now the government reports She’s giving pints instead of quarts.
Sundry Links, &c.
Blog: “Is Trump Pursuing Free and Fair Trade? No.”
Blog: “What You Should Be Reading: May 2025”
“Removing Barriers to Prosperity: A Free Trade Center Interview with Iain Murray”
An ode to a very special lady.
Bad economists get things wrong.