blind faith

I read this book yesterday, "The Antitrust Religion" by Edwin S Rockefeller, published by the Cato Institute (a libertarian thinktank based in Washington DC):

http://www.catostore.org/index.asp?fa=ProductDetails&method=&pid=1441371

The premise of the book is that antitrust (or "competition" as it is known in Europe) is not a legal regime so much as means for government to achieve political aims, and that many of its adherents have a blind, dogmatic faith in antitrust, thus unwilling to see its deficiencies.
There is much in this work with which I agree (especially dressing up policy as law), although I draw different conclusions to Rockefeller from his observations. Furthermore, his criticism of adherents of antitrust for being ideologues rings true for him himself: he wrote this book from his libertarian, free market, anti-(federal) government intervention perspective, so is not immune from his own criticism. He evens mentions, seemingly without irony, the "sanctity" of freedom of contract.

Implicitly advocating the abolition of an antitrust regime, as Rockefeller seems to do, is, of course, highly controversial. Nevertheless, this book seems to have been written with the sole purpose of stating this idea. It does not engage with any contrary arguments or positions (especially against his libertarian ideology), and puts forward as statement of fact what is mere theory. Also, some of the attack on antitrust involves the structure of the American state and the propriety of government intervention, which is not easily transferrable to the European context (perhaps there is something in the European disposition to anarchy compared to the American disposition to liberty).

Nevertheless, my sphere of antitrust/competition theory is all the richer for such leftfield(rightfield?) endeavours.