I first did antitrust work in 1964—38 years ago. I have been active in the field in perhaps half the years since then. From the time I began in antitrust, or perhaps starting shortly afterwards, one would regularly hear the phrase, "Bigness is not badness." This never seemed right to me, doubtlessly because of the contrary influence of two brilliant Justices, Louis D. Brandeis and William O. Douglas. Yet "bigness is not badness" is a philosophy that swept the field of economics and the field of antitrust law. It carried the federal judiciary and American politicians. It supported wave after wave of mergers in which huge companies became gigantic, and it supported increases in corporate size, without mergers, that caused companies to become elephant-sized.

There never really was any proof that bigness is not badness, that bigness is, in fact, good. Rather, the alleged benefits of gigantic size were mainly matters of theory. They were a propaganda triumph of academics, and of lawyers and investment bankers who benefited when companies grew gigantic by merger or otherwise. I once asked a former head of the Antitrust Division, who was one of the believers, whether he had any factual proof that large mergers benefited the economy. His answer was no.

Ideas from the University of Chicago once were called "a triumph of theory over fact." So it was here, where the so-called "Chicago School" had much to do with the overthrow of Brandeis and Douglas.

For nearly two generations now, the idea that "bigness is not badness" has prevailed. But of late questions have been raised that ought to cause a reassessment of the role and value of gigantic corporate size. Many of these questions are discussed in this issue of LTV. The questions include economic ones of efficiency and maximizing economic benefit. But they also include ones, as Brandeis and Douglas realized, that involve political power in this country.

Recently Richard Rorty said that, although Americans can "take justified pride in being citizens of a 200-year-old constitutional democracy," nonetheless "our country can also be described, plausibly, as a corrupt plutocracy—a country in which money buys nomination for high office, in which the rich routinely bribe the legislatures, and in which voter apathy is on the increase." Can anyone doubt that ever-increasing corporate giganticism, with its associated campaign contributions, propaganda machines, and influence peddling, is one of the reasons that we have become a corrupt plutocracy?