Chapter 30 is not a simple antitrust-deregulation chapter. It argues that the FTC should still trust markets in general, but it also claims that modern concentration, ESG-linked coordination, government-platform collusion, and the online treatment of children may justify a recalibrated and in some respects more aggressive conservative use of antitrust and unfair-trade-practice tools.
- Chapter title: Federal Trade Commission
- Chapter number: 30
- Major institutional domain: antitrust theory, consumer protection, Big Tech, ESG and corporate coordination, and child-online-safety policy
- Chapter position: final chapter in the Project 2025 chapter set covered in this boundary zone
- Extracted chapter opening appears at page 869, and the chapter continues through its conclusion and endnotes without a later Chapter 31
¶ Major claims and proposals
- The chapter revisits a traditional consumer-welfare approach to antitrust but argues that conservative antitrust thought also has room to address political and institutional harms associated with concentration.
- It treats Big Tech power, government-platform coordination, and certain forms of de-banking or ESG-based coordination as possible threats not just to prices but to democratic institutions, free speech, and civil society.
- It recommends investigation of ESG and DEI practices where they may function as collusive or reputational laundering devices for firms with market power or privileged government relationships.
- It argues that some politically motivated corporate behavior can amount to an unfair trade practice, especially where regulated firms use market power to impose ideological agendas unrelated to normal business judgment.
- It calls for stronger FTC attention to protecting children online, including scrutiny of platform advertising and contract-making with minors and possible parental-consent requirements.
- At the same time, the chapter explicitly preserves internal conservative disagreement over how far the FTC should go, including skepticism about overregulation, age-verification burdens, and the risk of expanding the federal bureaucracy.
¶ Institutions, actors, or domains involved
- Federal Trade Commission
- antitrust and consumer-protection law
- Big Tech and large digital platforms
- ESG and DEI-related corporate practices
- social-media companies and online contracting with minors
- state attorneys general and regional enforcement capacity
¶ Policy mechanisms and implementation logic
The chapter combines reinterpretation of antitrust purpose, possible unfair-trade-practice enforcement, investigation of collusive or politically motivated corporate conduct, and child-online-safety intervention. Its core logic is that conservative FTC policy can remain pro-market while responding to cases where concentrated private power and government coordination threaten speech, civic institutions, or child welfare.
- This chapter openly preserves internal disagreement inside the conservative coalition over how much weight to give consumer welfare, democratic-institution concerns, and social harms in antitrust enforcement.
- It criticizes government overreach while simultaneously inviting more active FTC intervention in areas like ESG coordination, platform governance, and online harms to children.
- The chapter's treatment of Big Tech and unfair trade practices is materially broader than a narrow price-and-output model, which makes it one of the more conceptually hybrid chapters in the volume.
raw/papers/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf- Extracted chapter opening appears at page 869, with the chapter continuing through its conclusion near page 878 and then endnotes
- Extracted text in this pass clearly covers the consumer-welfare debate, democratic-institution concerns, ESG/de-banking arguments, child-online-safety proposals, state-attorney-general and regional-enforcement discussion, and the chapter's concluding call for careful recalibration
¶ Evidence limits and open questions
- This chapter contains explicit internal disagreement and a wide mix of antitrust, consumer-protection, platform-governance, and child-safety arguments, so later work may need a refreshed or split treatment if it becomes heavily cited.
- The chapter is clear as a chapter, but the surrounding Section 4 / Section 5 placement should remain source-bound and conservative rather than over-cleaned.
- The chapter is prescriptive and should not be treated as evidence that the FTC adopted these positions.