"The Mother of Combines": Representations of the United States in Early Canadian Discourse on the Combines Problem and the Formation of Canadian National Identity. Issue 1 (22nd April 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hoffman, C. P.
• Is Part Of: Canadian journal of law and society. Volume 36:Issue 1(2021)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 21
• Publication Date: 2021-04-22
• Subjects: Legal history, -- Canadian history, -- anti-combines act, -- competition law, -- Canadian views of United States; Histoire du droit, -- histoire du Canada, -- loi anti-concurrence, -- droit de la concurrence, -- perceptions canadiennes des États-Unis; Sociological jurisprudence -- Periodicals; Law -- Canada -- Periodicals; 340.11505
• DOI: 10.1017/cls.2020.37
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1744-9324

Abstract

Abstract: In 1887, Canada was in a fervour over so-called "combines, " a term used to cover price-fixing schemes, pool agreements, trusts, and other cartel arrangements. The public debate led to the passage in 1889 of the Anti-Combines Act, the world's first modern competition statute, enacted a year prior to the United States' Sherman Antitrust Act . But while Canada acted before its neighbour to the south, the United States was omnipresent in the Canadian debates in four ways: as a benchmark against which the Canadian economy and the combines problem should be judged; as a model for potential legal action; as a potential economic liberator; and as the very source and propagator of the combines problem. Canadians thus alternately presented the United States as saviour or devil, as paragon or antithesis. The result was a paradox of a sort: Canadians borrowed American ideas in order to avoid becoming American.