For the past 40 years, United States antitrust law has been guided by two basic principles: economic efficiency and consumer welfare.

In 1979, the Supreme Court (Reiter v. Sonotone) relied primarily on Professor Robert Bork’s view that U.S. antitrust law was about consumer welfare, not the Brandeisian notion to favor small businesses over large ones. Bork’s victory came at the right time. U.S. economic policy was pivoting from regulation to deregulation, and people were angry about a lost decade of high inflation and economic stagnation. The Supreme Court chose the interests of economic efficiency, national prosperity, and consumer welfare over the view that small business is somehow more virtuous than big business.

The legal about-face was dramatic. Economic efficiency and consumer welfare triumphed over the utopian view that a multitude of small, inefficient businesses and distributed economic power are superior to national welfare. The Supreme Court set out a bright line for antitrust law. The view that antitrust law was all about economic efficiency could be applied consistently and with certainty.

This matters. A lot.

Free market capitalism has given America the world’s most productive economy. Through the market, people make choices about what products and services to consume. Through our choices, we have made Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft titans of the global economy, and they are all efficient. To stay competitive, they invest heavily in research and development and account for about 15% of all research and development spending in the U.S. Free market capitalism is democratic because it is based on our freely made choices about consumption.

Unfortunately, President Joe Biden chooses authoritarian populism and anti-capitalism over free markets. Biden selected professor Lina Khan to be chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Commissioner Khan believes that she is omniscient. She is not. Khan embraces the Brandeisian economics of the early 20th century and asserts that the biggest technology companies should be broken up so that smaller, by definition less efficient, companies can thrive. Her views are archaic and asinine, as are the views of Democrats and some delusional Republicans who agree with Khan/Biden.

Khan’s opinion that small, less efficient producers are superior to large, more efficient producers will cause national productivity to decline. To illustrate the power of strong productivity, if the secular growth rate of national productivity is 2% then real economic output will double every 36 years. But if productivity grows at only 1% on a secular basis then it will take 72 years for real economic output to double. A less prosperous nation will not have the resources to tackle pressing healthcare issues and care for the growing pool of aging citizens and will also not have the resources to adapt to global climate change. A less prosperous America will not have the resources to deter aggression from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

Before the Biden administration took office, U.S. antitrust law was based on a bright line of economic efficiency and consumer welfare. That should remain the law. Economic efficiency depends on the market. It depends on our individual choices about what we consume. Through the pricing mechanism, consumers choose goods and services based on cost. When prices are lower, consumer welfare is maximized. When prices are higher, consumers are less prosperous.

The Biden administration and FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan want higher prices, lower economic efficiency, and more control by the federal government of the choices that people make about everyday purchase decisions.

The Biden administration, Khan, and similarly minded members of Congress are wrong on antitrust law.

James Rogan is a former U.S. foreign service officer who later worked in finance and law for 30 years. He writes a daily note on finance and the economy, politics, sociology, and criminal justice.