What is the Mises Institute?

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) represents a misguided attempt to regulate digital marketplaces, resurrecting the outdated and deeply flawed Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) paradigm. This essay argues that the DMA’s structural approach is not merely ill-suited to the dynamic nature of digital markets, but actively harmful, threatening to stifle innovation, impede market progress, and ultimately harm the very consumers it purports to protect.The SCP paradigm, which forms the bedrock of the DMA, is a relic of mid-20th century industrial economics, woefully inadequate for understanding modern digital ecosystems. This framework naively posits that market structure determines firm conduct which, in turn, affects market performance. In clinging to this outdated model, EU