Os fundamentos contra o antitruste

Abstract

This thesis aims to demonstrate that an antitrust legislation is unnecessary for the normal functioning of a free market economy. First, the study demonstrates how the antitrust is related to interventionist economic theory, developed from the tensions between socialism and liberalism. Then, it was made a historical research on the origins of the Sherman Act, the american antitrust law, to show that it was not edited to protect consumers, nor to prevent alleged auto-destructive effects of deregulated markets, but to protect inefficient firms. In the following chapters, this work restores the correct concepts of competition dynamic process of constants discovery e rivalry and monopoly legal restrictions to entry of competitors based on the teachings of the Austrian School of Economics, to then criticize the instruments of antitrust control existent in the legislation, such as prior analysis of mergers and prohibition of predatory pricing, and show that, in fact, is the state who creates and sustains monopolies, duopolies, oligopolies and cartels harmful to consumers. Finally, the study highlights that the only legitimate function of an antitrust law would be the combat against attacks on free competition conducted by the state itself, wich unfortunately does not occur in practice