You aren't going to believe the latest lawsuit fad in America: suing companies as monopolistic for cutting prices to consumers. In legal mumbo-jumbo, this is called "predatory pricing" – keeping prices lower than charged by competitors. The idea is to keep prices so low that rival firms can't compete. Quick, throw Walmart, Home Depot, and McDonald's in jail.

This is no joke. Recent news reports indicate that the so-called Main Street Competition Coalition, helmed by a former small and midsize grocery chain lobbyist, a Biden administration official, and trial lawyers, is lobbying to outlaw volume discounts under a 1936 law called the Robinson-Patman Act (RPA).

The RPA was intended to shield mom-and-pop stores from competition from chain stores offering bulk discounts. Until recently, history has largely recognized this foolish law as a New Deal mistake. It was left unforgotten until very recently. The Biden Federal Trade Commission (FTC) under activist Chair Lina Khan dusted it off as a tool to more closely enforce "fairness" over competition, to much fanfare from liberal activists and ambulance-chasing lawyers.

Now, with the Trump FTC having fired aggressive commissioners like Khan and dropped Biden-era cases – and with Congress unlikely to pass new attempts to reinvigorate the RPA – its cheerleaders are now pivoting to the courtroom as a new........

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