Rediscovering the Spirit of Competition: On the Normative Value of the Competitive Process

Citation

Andriychuk O (2010) Rediscovering the Spirit of Competition: On the Normative Value of the Competitive Process. European Competition Journal, 6 (3), p. 575–610. https://doi.org/10.5235/174410510794499816

Abstract
This paper argues that competition constitutes a fundamental value of liberal democracies. It implies that antitrust law should primarily address the questions of the protection and promotion of the competitive process and only explore in an ancillary role the impact of competition on consumer welfare and other economic or political values. The assumption that competition is only useful as a means to generate welfare is contested. Its literal interpretation would reveal that we appreciate welfare more than competition and, if this is the case, competition will be compromised as soon as we find better ways to generate welfare. This would undermine the very concept of freedom which constitutes the main component of the competitive process. The normative justification of this statement is provided by analysing similarities between political, cultural and economic competition and demonstrating their constitutional significance for liberal humanistic democracies. This bold premise, however, faces many practical difficulties which are addressed in this paper with the view of providing an operational algorithm of correlation between the ethical dimensions of competition with its functional, welfare-centred aspects.

Journal
European Competition Journal: Volume 6, Issue 3