Protection of Small Business

There is no doubt that hostility toward big business – at that time an unfamiliar from of enterprise – motivated the passage of the Sherman act. From this point of departure, critics of the antitrust laws sometimes assert that the antitrust laws have served to protect small business from the competition of rivals. Despite a few statements in debate that indicate concern for the fate of the individual competitor, the consensus in that the protection of small forms was not among the original goals of the Sherman act.

Recall that section 2 of the Sherman act prohibits monopolization, not monopoly. It seems clear that this section reflects the intent of congress to permit market power acquired by competition on the merits. In a revealing exchange, the senator from West Virginia asked:

Purpose a citizen of Kentucky is dealing in shorthorn cattle and by virtue of his superior skill in that product it turns out that he is the only one in the united states to whom an order comes from Mexico for cattle of that stock for a considerable period, so that he is conceded to have a monopoly of that trade with Mexico; is it intended by the committee that the bill shall make that man a culprit?