I initially thought you were decrying the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act when I saw the headline ... oops.

I thought of straightlinelogic and Tom Durand as I watched Rockefeller getting grilled for doing what he should have been doing in "The Men Who Built America" on Wednesday the 2nd.

On the absurdity of antitrust laws, from The Golden Pinnacle (Tom Durand testifies before ICC examiners):
"You would also concede that the Union Pacific has consistenty maintained shipping rates that are lower than your competitors' rates even after you raised them?"
"Yes, we have, even as we've achieved that higher rate of return."
"Are you aware that such a practice could be construed as predatory pricing?"
Tom remembered his father telling him how Rockefeller had built Standar Oil, relentlessly achieving efficiencies that drove the price of kerosene from eighty cents to a few pennies a gallon while gearnering legendary profits. Now that kind of competitive efficiency was suspect.
"When I was here in August, didn't you say that rates that matched our competitors' could be evidence of collusion?" Tom said.
"I may have said something to that effect."
"Under the antitrust law, can't rates that are higher than those which normally prevail be evidence of monopoly power?"
"That is...wait a minute, I know where you're going with this," Morris said, eluding checkmate.
"If our rates are low, we're predators, if they're the same we're colluders, and if they're higher we're monopolists. Which one should we pick?"
"Mr. Durand," Mr. Grimes said. "We're not here to tell you how to run your railroad."
"But the railroad can be subject to civil and criminal penalties if you don't like what we do after the fact, and so can I."
"It's not arbitrary, Mr. Durand," Grimes said. "We have procedures and regulations."
"Where in your procedures and regulations does it tell me at what level to set rates?"

Thanks for posting this article that reminds us of the travesty of one of the first of what's now millions of nonobjective laws.

I just took a few minutes to read "I, Pencil" as I had never heard of it before now, and I'm glad I did. Thank you.

Cafehayek has been a daily part of my life for the last couple years. His and your point is spot on, what a piece of legislation. That's why on day 2 of my economics class, the students read "I, Pencil"