Tom Armantano is one of the heroes of the revival of Austrian economics, and I'll start
out by saying that, but I probably don't need to say it because the reason we're here is
celebrating his book and his work.
In trying to make that argument, I want to cover three things as I'm talking here.
First of all, I want to talk about his book, The Myths of Antitrust, as a book about antitrust.
Second of all, I want to talk about it as a book in Austrian economics.
And finally, I want to talk a little bit about the intellectual environment in economics
at the time the book was written, because I think that it makes it a little bit more
It's more impressive to think about the book along those lines.
If we think about the book along the lines of a book on antitrust,
I mean, you've got to say it holds up pretty darn well after 40 years.
I mean, you read it, the arguments seem fresh.
He goes through and discusses and dissects the antitrust cases.
So the book really holds up pretty well in defending the idea that anti-trust laws are against the public interest.
Now, it's interesting to consider the degree to which arguments along those lines are persuasive.
When I talk to my own students, I tell my students,
if you want to understand why any policy exists,
don't ask why is this in the public interest.
Ask yourself who benefits from this policy
and how much political power do they have?
So that's an argument that sort of suggests
that it's interests rather than ideas that are important.
And I guess as academics, we might rebel against that a little bit.
And I'm thinking on the other side, there's
that famous passage at the end of John Maynard Keynes's
General Theory, where Keynes says,
the ideas of economists and political philosophers
are more powerful than is commonly understood.
Indeed, the world is ruled by little else.
And I try to articulate that clearly.
Indeed, the world is ruled by little elves, because my former colleague Roger Garrison tells this story, he used that quotation in class, he used that quotation from Keynes in class, and then later on in an exam, he relates back that a student writes on his exam, the world is ruled by little elves.
And I have to say, economics probably in general isn't that funny, and I'll say, given Roger
some credit, every funny thing I know about economics I heard from Roger.
So it's interesting to consider which is more influential, ideas or special interests, but
I do think they go together.
I live in Tallahassee, Florida, the capital of Florida.
And I do interact with the state legislature now and again.
And I do see the power of special interests.
But I also see that, in general, on issues
there are people on both sides.
And I think the people who are on both sides
have their own interests.
But they need arguments to back those interests up.
And so if we can come up with the ideas and present the ideas,
sometimes that can help the interests that
are on the right side.
In fact, I'm remembering from my own experience
having a legislator call me up, a Florida legislator call me up,
because he read something that I had written.
And he said, we're holding hearings on this subject
and so forth, and I've got this thing that you wrote.
and he starts reading me over the phone, you said this and that and that and he said I want
you to come down to our committee and say that and so I did but and you know when you
think about the way that academics are used in the policy process it's not that gosh here's
a college professor, this guy is so smart, let's hear what he has to say, no it's not
not that at all, you know, it's that, you know, here's somebody who has the appearance
of neutrality because he's an academic and he's going to say something that bolsters
my case and so I'm going to try to get him to come down and give an argument that works
on my side.
And so again, when I think about the ideas, we look at Dom's book as a book on antitrust
And one of the things that Don talked about when he was giving his talk about the book
was maybe he made a mistake by saying that we ought to just abolish antitrust laws.
But I don't think that's the case, because if you leave the laws in place, that just
opens the door for special interests down the road.
So I think, really, the best thing to do is to abolish the laws.
And also, I don't know how much you want to be used as a foil or something,
but if you take an extreme view, that makes people who are edging toward your view
look like middle of the road.
But anyways, when you think about the influence of ideas,
And I think the book holds up really well.
When you read it, it gives good solid arguments.
And so it's a masterpiece in antitrust.
I want to think a little bit about the book also
as a book in Austrian economics, because it definitely
has a solid Austrian foundation.
And if you read the Myths of Antitrust,
you look on the first page of the book,
and there's a footnote on the first page of the book that
references some influences.
And the influences are Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard,
and Alchin and Allard.
How did those guys get in there?
But, I mean, right on the first page of the book, you know, you see where he's coming from and Mises and Rothbard there, and there at the beginning of the book, let me just read a little bit out of the book, which I hope I can read because it's written in my handwriting and I'm not reading the book, but just to get a flavor for the theoretical foundation,
Foundation.
Dom says, in the real world, as apart from economic fantasy, competition is a dynamic
process where firms, to sustain their existence, must understand and exploit consumer demand,
discover and employ economic resources, and adopt and employ technological change in order
to meet the thrusts of the ever-changing market forces initiated by consumers, factors of
of Production or by One's Economic Rivals.
Competition is an endless series of differentiations
and is as far from the docile and calm homogeneity assumptions
as imaginable.
Differentiations of product, of service, of quality,
of convenience, of advertising, of technology, of innovation,
and of price are the very essence of market competition,
rather than imperfections or departures
from some presumed ideal equilibrium.
So you see from the references of people
in the Austrian school, you see this Austrian foundation
in the book.
But that's a small part of the book.
So we start out, we have this foundation.
And then in what I think is just a model of the way
that Austrian economics always have to be approached,
but a good approach for doing research in Austrian economics,
then Dom takes these ideas to all these antitrust cases.
And so the bulk of the book is really,
let's look at the facts.
So he's got facts about the cases,
let's look at the cases, let's look at what was said about them,
let's look at how these cases were actually decided.
And so starting from this Austrian foundation,
the book is actually looking at real public policy issues
using real facts, you know, and I think sometimes there's a tendency in research in Austrian
economics to be perhaps overly theoretical, you know, to say, well, you know, here's our
theory and here's why the neoclassical theory is wrong, and okay, fine, but what difference
does that make? And if we're talking about antitrust policy, that's what Dom's book says.
Here's what difference that makes. And he's looking at actual policies to illustrate that.
So I think we can look, as I first wanted to do, look at the book as a book on antitrust,
but think about it as a book in Austrian economics, and when you look at it that way, it's a really
good model for the way that we ought to be doing research in Austrian economics.
I think that's another reason why the book has held up so well for 40 years.
And the final thing that I wanted to talk about is the academic and intellectual environment
in economics at the time that the book was written.
And I think Roy made some reference to this, the difference between what things were like
in 1972 and 1982 when the second book came out.
But when you look at the evolution of the Austrian School, you go back to 1972 or back
to the 60s when you started writing the book, the Austrian School was almost non-existent.
I mean, I think if you get right in the middle of the 20th century, and that's probably not
exaggerating too much to say there was one Austrian economist, which was Ludwig von Mises.
There are other people we could talk about, Hayek was still around but he sort of moved
to other things, but really Ludwig von Mises was the core of the school and maybe the Austrian
school.
If he wasn't there, we might not be here today.
And from there, there were a few students of Mises who were doing some work in Austrian
in Economics, and of course, Kirzner and Rothbard are two of the giants. So they were doing
work, but they were doing work more or less in isolation. I mean, they were putting out
their work, but there really wasn't an Austrian school as such. And I think, as Roy noted
some of the facts, I mean, there was a big Austrian revival that started in the 1970s
there was a conference in South Royalton and then the conference that Dom organized in Hartford the next year
so there was really a big revival in Austrian economics so that the school starts rebuilding
as we move through the 70s into the 80s and 90s to today
but if you go back to when this book was written, that intellectual infrastructure wasn't there
wasn't there. So there were a few books, and Murray's book was cited. So there were a few
books, but there just wasn't that Austrian school that was there. And one of the things
I'm kind of interested in, Dom, is how did you run across this stuff? And how was it
that you were captivated by it in order to use that as a foundation for your ideas? Because
I mean, at the time, when I was an economics major in college, I actually graduated from
college in 1972 when the book was published, and as a college student and economics major,
I never heard of any of this stuff, you know, I mean, it was never presented in class, there
wasn't, you know, so I mean, today, the Austrian School is prominent enough, if you read the
New York Times, Paul Krugman is criticizing this school, but go back to the 70s, nobody
would have even heard of it, nobody would have made mention of it. So Dom really wrote
this book, this book was published when there was pretty much a vacuum, a few works around,
but not really an Austrian school as such. And so when you look at the revival of the
of the Austrian School, really one of the key books in it is the myth of anti-trust.
You can look at the work of people like Mises, like Rothbard, like Kirzner, they're laying
the foundation, but really a model for what the Austrian School can do, what we can do
as Austrian economists, that book really serves very well.
And so that's one of the reasons why I was saying, you know, Dom is one of the heroes
of the Austrian revival, one of the people who's put out, you know, solid work that's
endured for 40 years and has served as a model for the rest of the school.
And so, you know, now we look around, I mean, look at the building here, the Mises Institute,
the people who are here at the conference, and I know a lot of people who are at that
at South Royalton's conference,
daughtering up to the stage and so on.
And there's a whole new generation of Austrian scholars
who are following on, but there just wasn't
that kind of intellectual infrastructure
at the time that Dom's book was written.
So he was putting out a book
that didn't really have a support group,
didn't really have the intellectual infrastructure.
So it was a pretty courageous thing to put out the book
and to pursue this line of reasoning.
So I think you can look at Dom's work at several levels, like I said, and what I've tried to
do in the time that I have had allotted, think about it as a book on antitrust.
Great book.
Think about it as a model for the way that we should be doing research in Austrian economics.
It's a great book.
And think about the environment at the time when the book was written and it's even more
miraculous that Don was able to come up with the book and write the book.
So I'll close with that but I will say, you know, I do have that lingering question about
what was it that brought this work to your attention and why is it that you decided to
pursue that.
Again, reflecting on my own education, especially as an undergraduate, where, you know, these
These ideas were so far below water that I'd never heard of until I got to graduate school.
And I will say, when I got to graduate school, I didn't hear about it from my professors
either.
I had some fellow graduate students who'd run across the work and was exposed by them.
So thank you very much.
Thank you, Dom, for the book.
Thank you very much.