Cite as: 504 U. S. 451 (1992)
Scalia, J., dissenting
competitive benefits and its anticompetitive costs. See, e. g., Arizona v. Maricopa County Medical Society, 457 U. S. 332, 350-351 (1982). "The character of the restraint produced by [behavior to which a per se rule applies] is considered a sufficient basis for presuming unreasonableness without the necessity of any analysis of the market context in which the [behavior] may be found." Jefferson Parish Hospital Dist. No. 2 v. Hyde, 466 U. S. 2, 9 (1984). The per se rule against tying is just such a rule: Where the conditions precedent to application of the rule are met, i. e., where the tying arrangement is backed up by the defendant's market power in the "tying" product, the arrangement is adjudged in violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1 (1988 ed., Supp. II), without any inquiry into the practice's actual effect on competition and consumer welfare. But see United States v. Jerrold Electronics Corp., 187 F. Supp. 545, 560 (ED Pa. 1960), aff'd, 365 U. S. 567 (1961) (per curiam) (accepting affirmative defense to per se tying allegation).
Despite intense criticism of the tying doctrine in academic circles, see, e. g., R. Bork, The Antitrust Paradox 365-381 (1978), the stated rationale for our per se rule has varied little over the years. When the defendant has genuine "market power" in the tying product—the power to raise price by reducing output—the tie potentially enables him to extend that power into a second distinct market, enhancing barriers to entry in each. In addition:
"[T]ying arrangements may be used to evade price control in the tying product through clandestine transfer of the profit to the tied product; they may be used as a counting device to effect price discrimination; and they may be used to force a full line of products on the customer so as to extract more easily from him a monopoly return on one unique product in the line." Fortner Enterprises, Inc. v. United States Steel Corp., 394 U. S. 495, 513-514 (1969) (Fortner I) (White, J., dissenting) (footnotes omitted).
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