The economic problems facing the United States at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century resemble those that prompted the passage of the first federal antitrust laws at the turn of the nineteenth century. Those laws were a response to the public's concern about the misuse of economic and political power by trusts such as Standard Oil and United States Steel. Teddy Roosevelt called the owners of such trusts "malefactors of great wealth." A large number of Americans have blamed the economic crisis of 2008 on the "outright recklessness and greed" of the CEOs of commercial banks, investment banks and hedge funds who subjected their institutions to undue risk for their own gain. As a result, there is now a political consensus in favor of increased regulation of the conduct of American business.

Antitrust enforcement is now at one of its historic inflection points, poised between the laissez-faire policies of the Bush administration and the more activist regulatory approach desired by the American public and the Obama administration. The current economic crisis provides an opportunity-and a risk-for President Obama's antitrust regulators. They could develop policies that more effectively protect consumers from anticompetitive conduct, or they could over-reach by precluding American firms from competing aggressively to provide the lower prices or innovative products desired by American consumers.

Fortunately, the antitrust regulators of the twenty-first century can base their course upon a rich tradition of antitrust decision-making dating back to 1890. This Article explains how the federal courts and antitrust enforcement agencies can integrate the enduring values of previous antitrust eras into a comprehensive antitrust common law capable of regulating the principal types of competitive conduct in which American firms are likely to engage in the twenty-first century. The new common law proposed in this Article can provide the foundation for a centrist approach to antitrust enforcement. This approach would be consistent with the desire of the Obama administration and the American public for a bipartisan solution to economic problems. Since it comports with the most discerning antitrust precedent of the last 119 years, the proposed approach should be supported across the political spectrum.