Inequality: the qualified promise of competition law

Abstract Infamously, a tiny portion of society in most nations and across the world own most of the wealth, earn most of the income, and enjoy the lion’s share of economic opportunity. Is market competition a cause? Can competition law usefully contribute to solutions? Two decades ago, the competition law community answered, ‘Not my problem’. But gradually, it began to make connections, both on causes and solutions. This article identifies the various dimensions of the inequality problem, summarizes the literature, interrogates claims of rising inequalities and linkages to market power and antitrust violations, reviews how selected competition laws apply an equality value, and offers a list of possible competition law reforms or emphases that could help push back the rise of disparities rather than facilitating them. While the through-line from rising inequalities as a problem to markets as a problem to competition law as a solution is not as robust as many scholars contend, this article argues for an inequality consciousness of competition law, lest the exploitations, exclusions and deprivations continue to fall predominantly on the lower middle class and poorer populations and their plights are obscured by the meme of aggregating welfare.