In Ayn Rand’s “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal” Alan Greenspan ends his essay on antitrust legislation with the following:

Whatever damages the antitrust laws may have done to our economy, whatever distortions of the structure of the nation’s capital markets they have created, these are less disastrous than the fact that the effective purpose, the hidden intent, and the actual practice of the antitrust laws in the United States have led to the condemnation of the productive and efficient members of our society because they are productive and efficient.

I read this quote the same day I had read about the Department of Justice’s proposed actions against Apple, in which the government proposes to place controls on them in areas outside that of the e-book dispute that started the antitrust case against them, namely their iTunes stores for music and films.

Antitrust laws are among the most, if not the most, non-objective in the United States.  The precedents based on them essentially mean that you cannot know what might be considered illegal until after you are already in court defending yourself.  Imagine if there was a law in your state against driving at excessive speed on the highway, but instead of their being an actual number it was whatever the police officer felt was too fast at the time.  An even better example might be the fines for driving too fast in a work zone, which in Vermont are doubled. Imagine if you not only do not know how fast is “too fast” but you also do not know where exactly the work areas are?

As to the penalties imposed on Apple in the e-book area, from what I have read they are no required to allow Kindle and Nook reading apps to connect directly to Amazon and Barnes&Noble respectively so that iPad users (for example) can buy books from these retailers directly with Apple likely seeing no gain.

To put this penalty in another context to illustrate how crazy this is.  Imagine you own a restaurant.  You already have a bulletin board that advertises for other restaurants and bars in the area.  The the government comes along and says you have been colluding with local farmers to set prices on produce at a higher level than your competitors pay.  Keep in mind that no one is forced to eat at your restaurant and pay your prices.  To penalize you, you are now required to provide a way for customers in your restaurant to order take out from your competitors and eat it at one of your tables without paying you.

Such is the nature of antitrust law in the United States.