Biden’s antitrust demagoguery will drive inflation, not cure it

The Biden administration, finally beginning to worry about the political impact of the rising cost of food, fuel and other basic consumer necessities, is neatly dovetailing its push for aggressive antitrust enforcement by blaming inflation on big business and market concentration.

Politically speaking, it is a neat fix. It drives one of the central policies of the Biden administration — to shift antitrust enforcement from the consumer welfare standard of the past 45 years back to an earlier era’s more nebulous standard against “bigness.” And it deflects blame for inflation.

President Biden lacks the theatrical flourish of a Huey Long, but he is nevertheless trying out his best version of the Kingfisher routine. “I’ve directed my administration to crack down on what some major players are doing in the economy that are keeping prices higher than they need be,” Biden said in August. The cause of higher prices, he argued, is greedy big business and its stranglehold on the American consumer.

It is clear what drives White House anxiety. Food prices have risen about 3.4 percent from last year. After years of low gasoline prices, Americans now pay above $3 a gallon in most parts of the country. Biden is tasking Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan with targeting Big Ag  and Big Oil for antitrust action to drive down prices for consumers.

If left unchallenged, the Biden administration may succeed in diverting some heat over rising inflation. Large corporations are not in good order with voters on both the left and right. The president cannot be allowed, however, to use a political diversionary tactic that would perversely do the opposite of what he claims to do: Biden’s antitrust policies would raise the prices of basic needs for consumers. 

Let’s start with food prices and Big Ag. 

Two University of Idaho economics professors, Philip Watson and Jason Winfree, wrote in The Idaho Statesman that larger farms and agricultural companies, which have the capital to invest in expensive technology and economies of scale, actually have been making food steadily more affordable. It is precisely because of these economies of scale that the cost of food, until the disruption of the pandemic, was taking less out of household budgets. The professors conclude that “breaking up Big Ag could have the disastrous effect of raising food prices, which would likely have a disproportionate impact on poorer households.” 

If the Biden approach to agriculture and food is demagogic, its approach to oil and gas is risible. The current increase in gasoline prices results from the supply chain disruption caused by the pandemic, exacerbated by recent hurricanes and storms. It also may be partly because of the unrelenting hostility of the Biden administration to American energy, putting public lands off limits, killing the Keystone XL pipeline and using regulation to harass the fracking industry, despite the fact that cleaner-burning natural gas has helped reduce America’s greenhouse gas emissions. Technological advances led the United States to surpass Saudi Arabia and Russia in 2018 to become the world’s leading producer of oil. Biden’s antitrust policy also may be contributing to the sudden reversal of this energy glut. It was out of antitrust concerns that Berkshire Hathaway pulled out of a major natural gas pipeline deal earlier this year.

What has been the Biden administration’s response to recent shortages? It has not been to stimulate production at home or to help clear pipeline bottlenecks. Instead, national security adviser Jake Sullivan issued a statement pleading with OPEC and Russia to come to our rescue. OPEC demurred and Russian President Vladimir Putin used Sullivan’s entreaty to issue a humiliating “nyet.”

The real cause of inflation, of course, is recovery from a pandemic and the temporary economic depression it caused. It also might be driven by the reckless spending by presidents and Congresses of both parties. Our national debt is now 125 percent of our gross domestic product — higher than the previous high in 1946, when we won a victory over Germany and Japan rather than losing a war to the Taliban.

Blaming Big Ag and Big Oil for high prices will be popular. It also will be perverse. The abandonment of the consumer welfare standard will, if anything, lead to higher prices in both food and fuel for those least able to pay for it.

Robert H. Bork Jr. is president of the Washington-based Antitrust Education Project. The eldest son of the late Judge Robert H. Bork, he heads the Bork Group, a public affairs agency. Follow him on Twitter @Robert_Bork_Jr.