How I learned to stop worrying and love American monopolies

For many years, I was a big proponent of the idea that increased market power was harming the US economy in various ways. In the 2010s, in the economics

IwPost

"... the single most dangerous effect of the neoliberal philosophy ... was to blind most of our leading economic and legal scholars to the power structures of the production and communications systems on which we all depend. And further, to destroy our understanding that liberalism is not an attitude, not a form of tolerance, but rather the political art of structuring power and behavior in ways that promote our political and spiritual liberties."

#BarryCLynn, 2024

https://harpers.org/archive/2024/10/the-antitrust-revolution-big-tech-barry-c-lynn/

The Antitrust Revolution, by Barry C. Lynn

Liberal democracy’s last stand against Big Tech

Harper's Magazine

"What is still missing from this broad narrative is a full understanding of how this neoliberal counterrevolution succeeded in changing everything. Not merely the distribution of wealth and power. Not merely the relation of the individual to the private corporation. But how we live and see and dream."

#BarryCLynn, 2024

https://harpers.org/archive/2024/10/the-antitrust-revolution-big-tech-barry-c-lynn/

Funny choice of words. What this article makes clear is that "neoliberalism" is and always was a misnomer. A more accurate term is neofeudalism.

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The Antitrust Revolution, by Barry C. Lynn

Liberal democracy’s last stand against Big Tech

Harper's Magazine

"Many publishers have banded together to demand that legislators make tech giants stop stealing their ad dollars and treat every publisher the same. When governments in Australia, Canada, and California tried just that, Google and Facebook have sometimes simply shut off the flow of news across their platforms entirely, denying citizens and publishers of this most basic of rights"

#BarryCLynn, 2024

https://harpers.org/archive/2024/10/the-antitrust-revolution-big-tech-barry-c-lynn/

This is so oversimplified it's misleading, see;

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/10/big-tech-isnt-stealing-news-publishers-content/

The Antitrust Revolution, by Barry C. Lynn

Liberal democracy’s last stand against Big Tech

Harper's Magazine

"Yet there is today a very real threat of a tyranny in the vein of James. It lies, however, in a different place—in the reach, knowledge, interests, and prerogatives enjoyed by the interlocking network of private corporations that control our online communications and commerce. It is Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple that today enjoy the power to create and destroy, to censor and punish, to 'make and unmake' who they will."

#BarryCLynn, 2024

https://harpers.org/archive/2024/10/the-antitrust-revolution-big-tech-barry-c-lynn/

The Antitrust Revolution, by Barry C. Lynn

Liberal democracy’s last stand against Big Tech

Harper's Magazine

Big Tech Extortion Racket: How Google, Amazon, and Facebook Control Our Lives

These companies are the most powerful middlemen in history. Each guards the gate to innumerable sources of essential information, services, and products. Yet thus far no governmental entity in the United States has signaled any intention of limiting the license these corporations enjoy to serve only the customers they choose to, at whatever price they decide.

https://harpers.org/archive/2020/09/the-big-tech-extortion-racket/

#monopoly #google #facebook #amazon #apple #microsoft #antitrust #BarryCLynn

The Big Tech Extortion Racket | Harper's Magazine

How Google, Amazon, and Facebook control our lives