Antitrust Is Political
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Antitrust regulation is just as politicized as other forms of regulation. Arizona attorney general Mark Brnovich’s just-announced investigation into investors whose politics he doesn’t like is just the latest example, as I point out in a letter that ran in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal:
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has opened an antitrust investigation into investment funds centered around environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals. He argues that they are financing a coordinated political agenda (“ESG May Be an Antitrust Violation,” op-ed, March 7). First Amendment concerns and the heavy legal lift of proving collusion aside, this investigation is wrongheaded for two reasons.
First, two wrongs don’t make a right. Mr. Brnovich is right that many ESG funds are politicized. But the remedy is not antitrust enforcement, which itself is politicized—not to mention slow, ineffective, and prone to regulatory capture.
Second, it is unwise to give new ideas to the Federal Trade Commission’s Lina Khan, Sens. Josh Hawley and Amy Klobuchar, and others looking to expand antitrust regulation. Antitrust mission creep has already crept too far.
Ryan Young
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Washington