Preserving a competitive system, not just rivalry but also small business, was done explicitly as a measure to block centralized political power.

One of the great intellectual triumphs of both the Chicago School and the New Left historical frameworks of the 1960s and 1970s was to airbrush this history out of the American mind. After the 1970s, making the case that antitrust had some sort of import aside from technocratic improvements in efficiency were grounds for mockery, and no one would imagine bringing them into a courtroom or policy debate.