LAD #27- Clayton Anti-Trust Act

The Clayton Anti-Trust Act
1914

Summary:

The Clayton Anti-Trust Act claimed that competitive price discrimination was illegal in the country, and by doing so this would urge businesses to become competitive in order to remove the monopolies that controlled a great deal of the industries. Despite how these would generally lower the prices of some goods, many people argued that this act would encourage the companies to charge more for their goods, thus dwindling the amount of money people had in their wallets. The Clayton Anti-Trust Act claimed that it itself could not be used in opposition to any organized labor unions, as to what was said in the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in years prior, which blatantly crushed early unions. The Act forbade companies from merging themselves together to create a monopoly, and declared that labor was an extension of commerce rather than an interchangeable mechanism in the system.