quote:
But whatever the beliefs of those calling for the breakup of Big Tech, the question remains whether it is wise to shoehorn broader social and political concerns into the narrow, economic remit of antitrust law.

By and large, the market is sufficiently powerful to constrain potentially problematic conduct. Consider the discussion that has developed since the disclosure of Facebook’s relationship with Cambridge Analytica. Mark Zuckerberg has been scrambling to make public amends and to stave off a potentially devastating regulatory response, even going so far as to suggest that perhaps platforms like Facebook should be subject to some regulation. Despite those efforts, the reality is that the market is the most effective regulator, and at the time of this writing Facebook has lost over $75 billion in value.

Alas, the urge to treat antitrust as a legal Swiss Army knife capable of correcting all manner of social and economic ills is apparently difficult to resist. Conflating size with market power, and market power with political power, many recent calls for regulation of the tech industry are framed in antitrust terms. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is one of the worst offenders in this regard:

Today in America competition is dying. Consolidation and concentration are on the rise in sector after sector. Concentration threatens our markets, threatens our economy, and threatens our democracy.
For Senator Warren the antidote is clear: “It is time to do what Teddy Roosevelt did: pick up the antitrust stick again.”

And she is not alone. Abetted by a growing chorus of advocates and scholars on both the left and right, proponents of activist antitrust are now calling for invasive, “public-utility-style” regulation or even the dissolution of the world’s most innovative companies essentially because they seem “too big.” Unconstrained by a sufficient number of competitors, the argument goes, these firms impose all manner of alleged harms — from fake news to the demise of local retail to low wages to the veritable destruction of “democracy.” What is needed, they say, is industrial policy that shackles large companies or that mandates more, smaller firms.

This view contradicts the past century’s worth of experience and learning. It would require jettisoning the crown jewel of modern antitrust law — the consumer welfare standard — and returning antitrust to an earlier era in which inefficient firms were protected from the burdens of competition at the expense of consumers. And doing so would put industrial regulation in the hands of would-be central planners, shielded from any politically accountable oversight.

I wonder if Trump sits around with some of these East Coast liberals and plots to attack them while picking up their biggest causes as policy???? Warren supports his tariffs too.