Posted by Authored by: Tyler Clark
Stronger Together
Worker protections and labor rights victories during the mid to late 19th century antedate a legal environment we enjoy today, where robust antitrust laws serve as prophylactics against rapid market consolidation, unlawful mergers, and unrelenting monopoly power. Then challenged by the vanguards of both railroad and grain elevator companies, laborers and farmers who organized against these monopolies through the Midwest and Illinois formed a movement known as the Granger Revolution.
First assembled to address agricultural inefficiencies, the movement understood that the entire food system relied overwhelmingly on farmers’ own labor. Thus, it would eventually look to advance workers’ overall economic wellbeing. Through grassroots organizing, the movement led to landmark Supreme Court cases like Munn v. Illinois, which after fear of further revolt in Illinois, established that corporations “of a public purpose” could be subject to public regulation.
In recognizing that modern anti-monopoly laws serve critical forms of regulation in several different industries, it was the rising scourge of controlling railroad monopolies, pernicious industrial “trusts,” that first necessitated remedies to punish bad conduct. Following the repeal of the Granger laws, Congress designed a “comprehensive charter of economic liberty,” subsequently codifying the first antitrust statute—The Sherman Antitrust Act—into law in 1890. Although now dissolved, the prevailing spirit of the Granger Movement may well be reflected in the Act, which seeks to preserve and promote fairness in open market competition, proscribe illegal trade restraints (and the attempt to unlawfully restrain trade), and dissolve private control over the ordinary citizen’s life.
Competition enforcement may be used to protect workers and consumers not just against monopsony or structural market power, but also to advance that promise of broad-based economic freedom opposite the massively influential Chicago School law and economics movement, which molded antitrust jurisprudence to fit pro-corporate ends, calcifying “rigorous” economic models as the default basis for legal interpretation throughout the judiciary–subjugating the animating intent behind the Sherman Act to efficiency outcomes measured through price or output effects, or other considerations which require expert analysis that imposes upon courts an economics-laden evaluation role that they are not well suited to handle.
Nevertheless, to re-invent Chicago as a creative leader in the ongoing fight against monopolistic practices, we would do well to remember the Granger Movement’s effort to achieve economic liberty on a local scale–beginning with the Illinois’ state Attorney General (AG).
To realize the full provisioning power that Chicago holds while it strives to act as an effective steward of our public dollars, we should encourage a localized legal regime that unleashes economic prosperity and works to deconcentrate outsized political clout. As well, we must encourage antitrust enforcement as a bipartisan concern, lean on a concerted enforcement initiative from each participating Attorney’s General to punish conduct ranging from exclusive dealing to extractive pricing algorithms, from vertical mergers to wage theft.
The Path Forward
The political dimension implicit within the antitrust laws, which by extension helps us to see how our economy is—to an important extent—one byproduct of legal rules, affirms that a multistate initiative is likewise necessary to effectuating both fairness in competition and safeguarding representative democracy, because these goals represent the very political crux of the country’s first antitrust and Granger laws. Further, enacting brightline rules could compel courts to further ditch a ‘consumer welfare standard’ analysis in favor of value-based fairness standards, allowing them to apply the law as intended without a confused “efficiency” economic lens. And it is worth noting that the foundation of “efficient allocation,” in spite of striving for such standards, still reflects income and wealth distribution (measures of inequality), despite expert testimony, because the amount of economic resources available to individuals impacts preferences and thus the economy-wide demand for goods or services.
The Granger Movement represents an important antecedent to modern antitrust laws and the scope of conduct that the implicit moral and political dimensions may permit or proscribe. State AG’s must compel corporate owners of these vital public infrastructure to divest, unwinding private control of our public dollars, and unleashing both economic security and individual liberty from unchecked monopoly harm. With these goals laid bare, we may once again reignite Chicago as a leader in antitrust, perhaps this time with the legacy of the modern Granger in mind.
About the Author
Tyler Clark is a current 1L at UIC Law. He holds a master’s degree in economics from the University of Utah. His research focuses on Law & Political Economy, Antitrust, and Economic History.
