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66 Yale L.J. 1 (1956-1957)
Price Differentials and Product Differentiation: The Issues under the Robinson-Patman Act

handle is hein.journals/ylr66 and id is 27 raw text is: THE YALE LAW JOURNAL VOLUME 66 NOVEMBER, 1956 NuMBER 1 PRICE DIFFERENTIALS AND PRODUCT DIFFERENTIATION: THE ISSUES UNDER THE ROBINSON-PATMAN ACT FREDERICK M. ROWEt THE CONSUMER IS MADE THE GoAT --Minority Report by Rep. Emmanuel Celler on the Patman Bill, H.R. 8442, H.R. Rep. No. 2287, 74th Cong., 2d Sess. pt. 2, at 6 (1936). THE modern firm's differentiation of its products is part of the strategy of diversification that has guided business growth for exploiting the post-war mass market.' With the prodigious output of a booming technology pouring into an economy of abundance,2 business cannot rest content to satisfy the public's basic wants. Creative merchandising must move and diffuse the stream among consumers, while advertising renews cravings for goods to provide the substance, or the illusion, of the better life.3 In competing for greater shares of this market, alert enterprisers cultivate more than customer tMember of District of Columbia and New York Bars. This article will be integrated into a text on the Robinson-Patman Act to be published by Little, Brown & Co. 1. Such growth has occurred by expansion from within, -e.g., Burck, The Rush to Diversify, Fortune, Sept. 1955, p. 91; Staudt, Program For Product Diversification, Harv. Bus. Rev., Nov.-Dec. 1954, p. 121, as well as through the acquisition of existing enterprises. Indeed, the conglomerate merger or corporate mixed marriage is the most dramatic feature of the current merger movement. See FTC, REPORT ON CORPORATE MERGmS AND AcQuisiroNs c. V (1955); FOULKE, DIVERSIFICATION IN BUSINESS AcnvWr 28-34 (1956); Harris, The Urge to Merge, Fortune, Nov. 1.954, p. 102; Kaplan, The Current Merger Movement Analyzed, Harv. Bus. Rev., May-June 1955, pp. 91, 95-99; Smith, The Olin-Mathieson Deal, Fortune, Nov. 1954, p. 107; Chaffetz, The Flood Tide of Mergers and the Public Interest 5-6 (Mimeo. Dec. 28, 1954). 2. The economy in 1956 was barreling along at a record gross national product rate top- ping $400 billion. Consumer expenditures alone had reached a rate of $274 billion annually in 1955. EcoNomsIc REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT 1-4 (1956) ; Fortune, Sept. 1956, p. 37. See also ALLEN, THE BIG CHANGE (1952); EDITORS OF FORTUNE, THE CHANGING AmERICAN MARKET (1955) ; Burck & Parker, What A Country!, Fortune, Oct. 1956, p. 127. 3. See Seligman, The Amazing Advertising Business, Fortune, Sept. 1956, p. 107; Barnet, Showdown in the Market Place, Harv. Bus. Rev., July-Aug. 1956, p. 85; Silber- man, Retailing: It's a New Ball Game, Fortune, Aug. 1955, p. 78; cf. SPECTORSKY, THE ExUnANITES (1955); WAKEMAN, THE HucKSTmas (1946); Brown, Advertising and the

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