Innovation Over Intervention: Antitrust Follies

Originally published on Substack.

Washington keeps treating “big” as a crime. That’s not antitrust. That’s jealousy with a subpoena.

The better approach is simple and American: judge company behavior by whether it hurts consumers. That is the consumer welfare standard, and it is the backbone of my new report co-published with NetChoice, Innovation Over Intervention.

If lawmakers stick to that standard, they protect people from real harm. If they abandon it, antitrust turns into a political weapon where the rules change depending on who is angry that week.

What the consumer welfare standard means, in plain English

The consumer welfare standard asks four basic questions:

• Will this make prices go up?
• Will it reduce output, meaning fewer choices or less availability?
• Will quality get worse?
• Will innovation slow down?

If the answer is “yes” and the evidence is real, then government might act. If the answer is “no,” government should get out of the way.

That is it. No guessing games about whether a company is “too big.” No punishing businesses for being successful. No using antitrust to settle political scores.

Why this matters now

Some people want to turn antitrust into a tool for controlling the economy.

Under the Biden administration, that mindset spread fast. And here’s the uncomfortable truth: a few voices on the right and in the Trump administration are tempted to copy it, just with different excuses.

That would be a mistake.

Why? Because when antitrust stops being about consumer harm, it stops being law enforcement and becomes economic central planning. And central planning always fails. It raises costs, slows growth, and creates more loopholes for the politically connected.

The biggest “monopolies” are usually built by government

If lawmakers want to find real monopoly power, they should not start with successful firms in competitive markets. They should start with government-created barriers that block entry and protect insiders.

When regulations are written in ways that only big, well-connected players can afford, that is not “competition.” That is regulatory capture. It is a rigged game.

The consumer welfare standard helps prevent that. It forces the government to prove real consumer harm instead of making up a story after the fact.

Why breakups and profit punishment backfire

Here is the part many people miss. Large tech companies are not just “apps.” They are building real stuff, hiring real people, and investing huge amounts of money into America’s future.

They are pouring capital into data centers, chips, cloud infrastructure, logistics, and AI. Those investments support construction jobs, engineering jobs, supplier networks, and local economies.

When government threatens to break companies apart or reduce their profitability on purpose, it is not “free.” It is a tax on investment.

And when investment falls, consumers lose. Prices rise. Quality drops. Innovation slows. The consumer welfare standard exists to prevent exactly that kind of policy failure.

What lawmakers should do

If you’re a policymaker or staffer, here is the simple checklist:

• Use the consumer welfare standard as the only test.
• Demand evidence of consumer harm, not theories about “bigness.”
• Stop using antitrust to micromanage markets.
• Focus on removing barriers to entry, especially permitting and infrastructure bottlenecks.
• Don’t import Europe’s regulate-first model. It produces compliance, not innovation.
• Don’t copy China’s state-control model. It produces political power, not prosperity or innovation.

Closing

The consumer welfare standard is not complicated, and that’s the point. It keeps antitrust from becoming a political playground. It protects consumers without choking off innovation.

America wins when markets decide. Consumers choose. Entrepreneurs take risks. Competitors challenge winners. And government steps in only when there is real consumer harm, backed by evidence.
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That’s the American model. Let’s stop messing with it.