How Libertarian Rhetoric Blocked American Antitrust Reform for Four Decades

Summary

The article examines how libertarian and right-wing rhetoric has successfully blocked antitrust and trust-busting policies in America for four decades. It focuses on three key rhetorical strategies: (1) labeling any critique of corporate power as "Marxism," (2) framing corporate charters as private rather than public contracts, and (3) equating economic regulation with authoritarianism. The piece argues these rhetorical moves have prevented meaningful public accountability of large corporations and have kept the American trust-doctrine — the legal principle that corporate charters are public grants subject to public conditions — off the political table.