The Federal Trade Commission has recently charged that four corporations,
Kellogg, General Foods, General Mills and Quaker Oats, have maintained monopoly
power in the ready-to-eat cereal industry for over 30 years. The case against the
cereal industry has set off a widespread wave of public reaction. Anti-business
groups are anxious to prove that after all these years, America is not really
dominated by big business interests after all. Consumerists are clamoring for the
head of another conglomerate monster who has, so they say, been filling society's
collective stomach with food products which are as expensive as they are
non-nutritive. Business advocates are plaintively crying that it is high time that
Americans recognized that big business is necessary both socially and
economically, and that our national posture toward big business should be changed
in order to protect it from periodic public witch hunting which is rooted in a
system of values that became antiquated with the horse and buggy.
The Federal Trade Commission and the Future Development of U.S. Consumer Protection Policy