The movement draws inspiration from the anti-monopolist work ofLouis Brandeis, an early 20th centuryUnited States Supreme Court Justice who called high economic concentration “the Curse of Bigness” and believed monopolies were inherently harmful to the welfare of workers and business innovation.
The New Brandeis movement opposes the school of thought in modern antitrust law that antitrust should center on customer welfare (as generally advocated by theChicago school of economics). Instead, the New Brandeis movement advocates a broader antimonopoly approach that is concerned with private power, the structure of the economy and market conditions necessary to promote competition.[3][4]
The New Brandeis movement believes that centralized private power poses a danger to the economic and social conditions of democracy.[5] Neo-Brandeisians believe, for example, that monopoly power is ripe with potential for abuse. They have also argued that dominant tech platforms create high barriers for potential competitors and reduce bargaining power of individual merchants, content providers, and app developers.[6] The movement advocates for market structures that prevent anti-competitive practices and would increase scrutiny of mergers, includingvertical mergers. Proponents believe antitrust laws should focus less on short-term price effects of mergers and more on improving the market conditions necessary to promote real competition.[5][6][7]
Critics of the New Brandeis movement believe that promoting competition for its own sake causes inefficient producers to stay in business, preferring a litigation approach based on empirical evidence.[17] The term "hipster antitrust" originally began as aTwitterhashtag, and rose to prominence when SenatorOrrin Hatch used the term during multiple speeches on theUnited States Senate floor.[18][19][20][21]Matt Levine ofBloomberg News has written that the term hipster antitrust "appeals to nostalgia for old-fashioned antitrust enforcement".[22] Some proponents of the movement believe the term is pejorative.[23] The term was coined byKonstantin Medvedovsky,[when?][24] anattorney atDechert, and popularized by disgraced formerFederal Trade CommissionerJoshua D. Wright.[25][26]
As documented by historian Ellis Hawley, the first "NeoBrandeisian" movement arose in the late 1930s.[27] In reaction to the failures of the first New Deal a group headed by Harvard ProfessorFelix Frankfurter advanced ideas of economic decentralization and renewed antitrust enforcement. These ideas came to be influential during the late 1930s and onward, during the so-called "Second" New Deal. Prominent individuals associated with the movement includedRobert H. Jackson,Benjamin V. Cohen,William O. Douglas, andThurman Arnold.
From World War II until the 1970s, the Brandeisian view that high market concentration leads to anticompetitive behavior was sometimes called the Harvard School of thought because the view was primarily associated withHarvard University, including works by economists Edward Mason,Edward Chamberlain, andJoe Bain. In the early late 1970s, this view fell out of favor as the views of theChicago School of thought rose, advocating a close attention to the short term effects of mergers on consumer prices.[17]
Lawrence Lessig wrote "The New Chicago School" article in 1998, challenging directly with analysis ofnetwork effects the orthodoxy of antitrust economics during the protractedUS v Microsoft litigation of the late 1990s.[citation needed]Tim Wu continued his mentor's work with extensive analysis ofnet neutrality from 2003[28], to whichYochai Benkler andNicholas Economides, both then at NYU, contributed. Continuing in the late 2010s,[29] the movement takes inspiration from formerUS Supreme Court justiceLouis Brandeis, who was a prominent anti-monopolist.[30][31] Brandeis believed that antitrust action should prevent any one company from maintaining too much power over the economy because monopolies were harmful to innovation, business vitality, and the welfare of workers.[5][17] He described "The Curse of Bigness," believing that large profitable firms use their money to influence politics and create further consolidation and dominance, once stating, “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”[17][32]
Lina Khan andTim Wu were foundational members of the movement
In the 2010s, the New Brandeis theory was popularized by legal scholarsLina Khan andTim Wu, both ofColumbia University. Khan published an article about the negative effects of monopoly power by the companyAmazon.[17] The theory would heighten scrutiny of large company mergers.[33]
Wu publishedThe Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Golden Age in 2018, which criticized antitrust's drift from its historic origins, introduced Brandeis' life and ideals, and advocated a return a more decentralized economy.[34] In 2019 Khan, Wu and others released a "Utah Statement" written at anti-monopoly conference meant as a codification of the movements' main principles.[35][36]
In 2021, the White House appointedTim Wu, a prominent member of the movement at Columbia, to serve as special assistant to the President for Competition and Technology policy.[39] The President in July 2021 signed a new Executive Order of Competition, which called for a reinvigoration of competition policy across government.[40] Biden later nominated Jonathan Kanter, a neo-Brandeisian, to serve as assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice Antitrust Division.[41][42] Kanter was confirmed by theUnited States Senate by a vote of 68–29 and took office in November 2021.[43][44] Biden also nominated Lina Khan to be Chair of theFederal Trade Commission.[45][46] On June 15, 2021, her nomination was confirmed by theSenate by a vote of 69 to 28.[47] Khan was confirmed with bipartisan support.[48]
Since the appointment of Neo-Brandeisian "troika" of Tim Wu, Lina Khan, and Jonathan Kanter,[49] the U.S. government has reformed the review of mergers,[50] reinvigorated pro-competitive rulemakings in non-antitrust agencies,[51] blocked several high profile mergers likeJetBlue/Spirit,[52]Penguin/S&S[53][54] andKroger/Albertsons[55] and taken tech platform Google to trial in the first major monopolization case of the 21st century.[56] The movement has also experienced some setbacks, including at least one loss against Facebook in court.[57]
In May 2025,Steve Bannon described his team as being Neo-Brandeisians and advocated in favor of Lina Khan's administration of theFTC.[58]
^Daly, Angela (2017-08-02). "Beyond 'Hipster Antitrust': A Critical Perspective on the European Commission's Google Decision".SSRN3012437.{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help)
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