The Neglected Role of the Individual In Antitrust Conspiracy Theory

Antitrust theory is notoriously fractured along ideological lines. Interventionists stand ready to regulate at a moment’s notice, seeing anticompetitive effects lurking in the shadows every time competitors so much as exchange greetings on the street. The Hyde Park crowd responds to what they see as unjustified paranoia with quasireligious faith in the self-regulating efficiency of markets, trusting in something more like an invisible but omnipotent god than the “invisible hand” to ensure competitive results. But amidst all of this contention and disagreement there are two areas of broad consensus. Antitrust commentators of all ideological stripes: (1) acknowledge that horizontal price-fixing, bid-rigging, and market-allocation cartels are bad;1 and (2) seem to care far more about the firms involved in cartel activity than about the people actually doing the conspiring.