"A significant aspect of this merger is that it creates a large national chain which is integrated with a manufacturing operation. Of course, some of the results of large integrated or chain operations are beneficial to consumers. Their expansion is not rendered unlawful by the mere fact that small independent stores may be adversely affected. It is competition, not competitors, which the Act protects. But we cannot fail to recognize Congress' desire to promote competition through the protection of viable, small, locally owned businesses. Congress appreciated that occasional higher costs and prices might result from the maintenance of fragmented industries and markets. It resolved these competing considerations in favor of decentralization." Chief Justice Earl Warren, Brown Shoe v. U.S., 370 U.S. 294 (1962).

Legal scholar Robert Bork argued that the Brown Shoe decision violated the principle of "fidelity to Congressional (or framers') intent."

"In Brown Shoe, in fact, the Supreme Court went so far to attribute to Congress a decision to prefer the interests of small, locally owned businesses to the interests of consumers. But to put the matter bluntly, there simply was no such congressional decision either in the legislative history or in the text of the statue…The Warren Court was enforcing its own social preferences, not Congress'" [Robert Bork . The Antitrust Paradox. New York: Basic Books, 1978: 65].