Competition Law for a Post-Scarcity World
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ARTICLES
COMPETITION LAW FOR
A POST-SCARCITY WORLD
by Salil K. Mehra*
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION............................. ........... 2
II. TOWARDS A POST-SCARCITY ECONOMY? ............... 7
A. Star Trek vs. Margaret Atwood vs. Paul Krugman .. 7
B. Post-Scarcity Economics and the Law ............... 10
C. Beyond IP-Falling Marginal and Fixed Costs of
Production ................................... 12
III. A COMPETITION-LAW RESPONSE?....................... 14
A. Protecting Innovation by Preventing Anti-
Disruption: The Apple/eBooks Case as Example... 15
B. The Declining Importance of Efficiencies in a
Decreasing-Cost World.. ...................... 22
C. Post-Scarcity and the Essential-Facilities Doctrine ... 28
IV. POST-SCARCITY, ARTIFICIAL SCARCITY, AND STATE
POWER.......................................... ........ 31
A. Uber, the Sharing Economy, and Artificial Scarcity . 32
B. Artificial Scarcity and the State . .................. 35
C. Prescriptions ................................. 37
V. CONCLUSION ............................................ 38
Now it is true that the needs of human beings may seem to be
insatiable. But they fall into two classes-those needs which are ab-
solute in the sense that we feel them whatever the situation of our
fellow human beings may be, and those which are relative in the
sense that we feel them only if their satisfaction lifts us above,
makes us feel superior to, our fellows. . . . [As for] the absolute
needs-a point may soon be reached, much sooner perhaps than we
are all of us aware of, when these needs are satisfied in the sense
that we prefer to devote our further energies to non-economic
purposes.
-John Maynard Keynes'
* Professor of Law, James E. Beasley School of Law (smehra@temple.edu).
Thanks to Greg Mandel, John Mark Newman, Harwell Wells, and participants at a
conference hosted by Bar-lan University for comments, and thanks to J.P. Whalen
for research assistance and Sarah Mehra for editing help. All errors and omissions are
the author's.
1. JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES, Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren, in
ESSAYS IN PERSUASION 321, 326 (Palgrave Macmillan 2010) (1931).
1](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/twlram2016&div=6&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Competition Law for a Post-Scarcity World
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