Distributive justice in coordination: Toward a political theory of antitrust law

Despite the fact the political theory of the corporation has correctly drawn our attention to the constitutive relationship between law and corporate power, there is surprisingly little attention, especially among normative political theorists, to the central role of anti-trust law in shaping the behaviors and scope of power of business corporations. In particular, competition law distributes coordination rights and exemption, which have significant implications to the balance of power between different contractual parties. The gig economy provides an illuminating example to illustrate this. For example, under the classification of Uber, drivers are considered "independent contractors". Because drivers are considered independent service providers, instead of workers under standard employment relationship, anti-trust law forbids drivers from collaborating together to set price or bargain with Uber (whereas in standard employment relationship, anti-trust law grants the "labor exemption" for workers to collaborate together to bargain with the firms or their employers).