Response to Long and Barr’s Comments

• Author: Mark D. White
• DOI: 10.1177/0003603X16646576
• Published date: 01 June 2016
• Date: 01 June 2016

Article

Response to Long and Barr’s

Comments

Mark D. White*

I appreciate the thoughtful comments and criticisms from Ryan Long and Alan Barr to my article ‘‘On

the Justification of Antitrust: A Matter of Rights and Wrongs.’’

1

They raise many serious objections to

my position presented there, and in this brief response I will address the three I found most thought-

provoking, with the hope that our conversation will contribute to an ongoing philosophical investiga-

tion of antitrust law and economics.

I. The Nature of Harms

The first general objection is to my position that only wrongful harms—that is, those that involve

violations of rights—can justify state interference.

2

In his response, Ryan Long cites Mill’s harm

principle to support a broader domain for government intervention in negative interactions. But Mill’s

harm principle is only a necessary, not sufficient, condition for state action; furthermore, it is more of

an argument against paternalism than an argument for government interference. In fact, Mill himself

made a similar distinction regarding mere harms and true wrongs, based on a (limited) concept of

rights, and acknowledged that harm can be legitimately inflicted on other persons in the context of

rightful activity. For example, he reserves popular or official sanction for acts ‘‘which, without

justifiable cause, do harm to others,’’ and later describes ‘‘acts injurious to others’’ that merit state

attention as an ‘‘encroachment on their rights’’ or ‘‘infliction on them of any loss or damage not

justified by his own rights.’’

3

In place of my distinction between wrongful and nonwrongful harms, Long posits a distinction

between levels of harm that either do or do not lead to long-term benefits: specifically, the transitory

harm done by single firms raising prices, which is an important part of the market adjustment process

*Department of Philosophy, College of Staten Island/CUNY, New York, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Mark D. White, Department of Philosophy, College of Staten Island/CUNY, 2800 Victory Blvd., New York, NY 10314, USA.

Email: profmdwhite@hotmail.com

1. Mark D. White, On the Justification of Antitrust: A Matter of Rights and Wrongs (henceforth Justification), ANTITRUST BULL.

(2016, this issue); Ryan Long, Ethics, Rights, and White’s Antitrust Skepticism (henceforth Ethics), ANTITRUST BULL. (2016,

this issue); Alan Barr, Do Property Rights Justify Collusive Wealth Transfers? A Commentary on White’s ‘‘Justification,’’

(henceforth Commentary), ANTITRUST BULL. (2016, this issue).

2. White, supra note 1.

3. JOHN STUART MILL,ONLIBERTY chs. 3 and 4 (1859) (emphasis added).

The Antitrust Bulletin

2016, Vol. 61(2) 346-350

ªThe Author(s) 2016

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DOI: 10.1177/0003603X16646576

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