Orrin Hatch, the original antitrust hipster, turns on his own kind

Posted by The Intercept

Orrin Hatch, the original antitrust hipster, turns on his own kind

By David Dayen

Before congress checked out for the August recess, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, made sure to use some of the waning moments to come to the defense of giant Internet platforms, contradicting a long history of concern over the power of tech monopolies, a concern that lasted right up through last year.

In a Thursday speech, Hatch warned about the rise of “hipster antitrust,” a flailing attempt at a derisive term for a group of experts and observers who look uneasily at growing concentrations in every sector of our economy. These hipsters — for the sake of sanity let’s just call them anti-monopolists or the New Brandeis movement — believe that antitrust officials at the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have for the past 35 years viewed the question of anti-competitive mergers and industries too narrowly, guided by something called the “consumer welfare” standard.

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