How the Digital Economy Challenges the Neoliberal Agenda: Lessons from the Antitrust Policies

Conceived in the 1930s as a way to renew free market liberalism, neoliberal doctrines aim to institute a competitive order that would regulate the market as well as society. Yet, interpretations of how competition should be enforced have varied throughout history. The European Union, with its ordoliberal origins, tends to follow an interventionist approach while the United States, where the Chicago School has gained influence, fears that inadequate public interventions may diminish global efficiency. The digital revolution and the appearance of the Tech Giants introduces a new challenge. Faced with massive increasing returns to scale, the competition authorities initially reduced their interventionism to enjoy more market efficiency. But the emergence of digital platforms and the will to protect personal data from abusive uses pushes them now to adopt a new strategy for more interventions that goes beyond the economic and efficiency issues. This paper argues that the neoliberal vision is no longer accurate to regulate the digital economy. It shows that the platform economy is not an alternative way to manage the market, but an alternative to the market itself. To face these issues, a completely new conception of public regulation is therefore needed.