Posted by New York Times
Antitrust Returns to American Politics
By Tim Wu
Senator Elizabeth Warren’s announcement on Friday of a plan to break up major tech monopolies like Facebook and Google was critically important — not just as a policy proposal, but also as a sign of the return of antitrust to politics.
In the United States, economic policy is ostensibly a matter of democratic governance, but for too long antitrust has been viewed as a technocratic matter best left to experts. This is a mistake: Excessive corporate size and power can be linked to many voter concerns, including stagnant wages, the invasion of privacy, the rise of fake news, the demise of the middle class and an unresponsive democracy.
Antitrust is especially salient today because we witness the tremendous power of the tech monopolies firsthand, in our daily lives. Nearly everyone uses Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, and nearly everyone can see how smaller businesses have been hurt by their dominance. Nearly everyone has an opinion about whether they are too powerful, whether they know too much, whether they ought to be admired or feared.
Add to these concerns the dangers of agricultural monopolies, rising costs for cable and broadband, and anticompetitive drug pricing, and it is clear that for Ms. Warren and other presidential hopefuls in the Democratic field, the problem of monopoly power should be a central issue — perhaps the central issue — in the 2020 campaign.
Though every Democratic candidate is against President Trump and in favor of working Americans, antitrust is an issue over which the candidates have real disagreement. There are stark differences between, say, Senator Bernie Sanders’s calls to “break them up” (usually a reference to banks), and former Vice President Joe Biden’s “cooperative” approach. Mr. Biden (still undeclared), has taken the position that big corporations should not be “singled out” and that their chief executives can be persuaded to shoulder their responsibilities toward workers and communities. (In the late 1970s, Mr. Biden resisted efforts to strengthen the antitrust laws, though his views may have changed as the law has grown weaker.)
Antitrust law is not an instrument of socialism or of unfettered capitalism; it seeks to protect markets from abuse by their participants. Ms. Warren and Senator Amy Klobuchar seem to have the deepest understanding of this. Ms. Klobuchar is not as aggressive on the issue as Ms. Warren, but she has cast herself as an antitrust reformer, introducing thoughtful new laws for merger reform. Senator Cory Booker, for his part, has over the last year staked out a trustbusting position centered on labor markets, with particular emphasis on the worrisome effects of corporate consolidation on workers and their salaries.
Featured News
Redfin Settles $9.2M Commission Inflation Lawsuits
May 7, 2024 by
CPI
DOJ Supports Colorado’s Efforts to Block Kroger-Albertsons Merger
May 7, 2024 by
CPI
Japan Considers Regulation of AI Developers
May 7, 2024 by
CPI
European Commission Extends Decision Deadline for Ita-Lufthansa Merger
May 7, 2024 by
CPI
UK, US and Australia Sanction Senior Leader of LockBit Cybercrime Gang
May 7, 2024 by
CPI
Antitrust Mix by CPI
Antitrust Chronicle® – Economics of Criminal Antitrust
Apr 19, 2024 by
CPI
Navigating Economic Expert Work in Criminal Antitrust Litigation
Apr 19, 2024 by
CPI
The Increased Importance of Economics in Cartel Cases
Apr 19, 2024 by
CPI
A Law and Economics Analysis of the Antitrust Treatment of Physician Collective Price Agreements
Apr 19, 2024 by
CPI
Information Exchange In Criminal Antitrust Cases: How Economic Testimony Can Tip The Scales
Apr 19, 2024 by
CPI