Reagan Inauguration Begins Antitrust Revolution: Eight Years of Systematic Enforcement Collapse and Corporate Consolidation

Ronald Reagan’s inauguration marked the beginning of the most consequential transformation in American antitrust policy since the Sherman Act of 1890—an eight-year systematic dismantlement of competition enforcement that would enable four decades of corporate consolidation and monopolization. The Reagan administration operationalized Chicago School ideology, appointing true believers including William Baxter (DOJ Antitrust Chief 1981-1983), Douglas Ginsburg, and later Thomas Rill, while judicial appointments of Robert Bork, Frank Easterbrook, and Richard Posner embedded the ideology in federal courts. The numbers document the collapse: total DOJ civil antitrust cases dropped from approximately 100 annually in the early 1980s to barely 25 by 1989; Clayton Act Section 7 merger cases saw structural breaks in 1974; Sherman Act Section 1 cases broke in 1981; Sherman Act Section 2 monopolization cases broke in 1972 and continued declining. Most tellingly, cases against Fortune 500 companies—the core of antitrust enforcement—plummeted from 21 per year (1955-1979) to just 6 per year (post-1980). Budget cuts prevented hiring of new DOJ antitrust attorneys in 1984, 1986, and 1987. The administration’s 1982 Merger Guidelines transformed enforcement philosophy, the 1977 abandonment of Robinson-Patman became policy, and vertical/conglomerate merger challenges effectively ceased. Merger activity exploded as regulations evaporated. Senator Amy Klobuchar later wrote that Clinton-era officials worked to ‘reverse the lax antitrust enforcement of the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations,’ but the effort failed—the Reagan consensus became permanent bipartisan policy. By the end of Reagan’s tenure, the antitrust framework that broke up Standard Oil and blocked anticompetitive consolidation had been systematically dismantled and replaced with an ideology that blessed corporate power concentration.