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Podcasting “Tech Monopolies and the Insufficient Necessity of Interoperability”
Corporate rivalries vs public power.
This week on my podcast, I read my latest Locus Magazine column, “Tech Monopolies and the Insufficient Necessity of Interoperability.” It presents a theory of change to get us to a world of aggressive, trans-industry, global trustbusting.
Most industries are monopolized. Whether we’re talking about athletic shoes or pharmacy benefit managers, the path to monopolization is the same: companies buy up small competitors, merge with major ones, and use their investors’ cash to subsidize anticompetitive attacks.
The reason they’re able to get away with it is that for 40 years, the world’s been in the grip of a dangerous economic delusion: that the only basis for fighting monopolies is “consumer welfare.” That is, monopolies should only be considered harmful if they make prices go up.
The “consumer welfare” standard originated with the far-right economics cult of the University of Chicago and was launched by Ronald Reagan, and has been supported by every president since (until Biden, whose EO from last week explicitly rejects it).
