Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Small businesses have declined sharply in both numbers and market share across many sectors of the economy. There is evidence that this decline is owed in part to anticompetitive behavior by dominant firms, which have used their market power to disadvantage smaller competitors and exclude new entrants. These abuses have gone unchecked because of changes in the ideological framework guiding antitrust enforcement. About thirty-five years ago, policy makers came to view maximizing efficiency, rather than maintaining fair and open markets for all competitors, as the paramount goal of antitrust. There are at least three reasons to bring a commitment to small businesses and fair markets back into antitrust policy: small businesses deliver distinct consumer benefits, contribute to a more equitable distribution of income and opportunity, and safeguard democracy.

This article addresses two questions: Has the effectiveness of the US government’s federal research and development (R&D) spending suffered from the post-1980 strategic change from freely shared and publicly owned to privately owned scientific advances? What criteria would a federal R&D program use to design a strategy that most effectively enhances the wellbeing of farmers and rural communities? Several studies found that the pre1980 US Department of Agriculture research strategy was very effective. No comparable studies have analyzed the comparative effectiveness of the post1980 strategy of restricting access to the results of public research. Recent experience and several analytical studies suggest that to significantly enhance the health of rural economies from an expanded use of plant matter as an industrial material, federal policy should channel scientific and engineering research into small- and medium-sized production and processing technologies and should encourage farmer-owned, value-added enterprises.Index EntriesEthanolscaleownershipresearch and developmenteffectiveness