Sure, but we really only have two ‘social democrats’* (Sanders and Warren). Seems to me these op-ed are primarily aimed at scaremongering against Sanders (as Warren’s not really gaining any traction.) But what they’re saying is that ‘the Left’ is so extreme that moderates will be forced to vote for trump because … reasons? (Why? Moderates are willing to embrace trump and all the ugliness Republicans embrace because they’re that concerned about the GDP to debt ratio? I mean, for real? I’d love an answer to that. Although I think Menzo might be right and it’s outrage journalism run amok.)
As an aside if I didn’t know any better, AOC and Omar are the two most powerful Democrats in Washington and they’re tearing the party apart (shakes fist.) It’s ridiculous. Pieces like Milbank’s asserting that they (and ohnoes the new green deal!) will be responsible for helping trump in 2020 is just muck racking.
*By American standards. They’re center-left everywhere else.
I think moderates are more likely to stay home if given a choice between Sanders and Trump. For myself I don’t like Sanders and I don’t like his politics and I would vote for him over Trump in a heartbeat, but I think lower information moderate voters are likely to be less militantly anti-Trump. Maybe I’m wrong.
From my distant perch, I think AOC right now is certainly one of the most powerful democrats in Washington, and it’s because she’s working with Pelosi and not trying to tear the party apart. So yeah I agree its ridiculous.
I think that’s an accurate assessment. But what do they fear? Higher taxes I guess? Seems far fetched that will happen regardless of which Democrat is elected unless somehow full blown Medicare for All is implemented (which seems a stretch; even for commies like me I’m thinking it would probably not be a good idea to pursue straight away, we’re going to need a transition period.)
The real problem with Sanders in my view is that in the area the president has most power (foreign policy) he is in many ways similar to Trump, with similar attitudes to both NATO and free trade.
Also, while American business certainly needs more and better regulation, Sanders would I think regulate the wrong things for the wrong reasons (unlike Warren, for example, who talks the same kind of talk to the extent that I had put her in the same box until I looked into her record - where she’s actually pushed forward regulatory measures has been very savvy). I guess realistically congress has a very big say in this anyway though.
This had to happen right after I just said something nice about Warren too :(
Not that there aren’t problems with big tech, but this does seem like it might throw the baby out with the bathwater. The EU seems to be charting a wiser course, with meaningful fines for misbheaviour and GDPR, although of course the EU isn’t in a position to act more directly against US tech companies, otherwise we might well be hearing the same kind of “break them up” rhetoric.
Again, I am going to have to agree with Warren here. She brings up some good points. Amazon has acquired Whole Foods, runs web hosting, manufactures products (amazon basics), runs a TV network, a movie studio. They have ballooned into an everything company, much like google did.
The consolidation of big tech companies has gotten pretty insane at this point. And while it may be convenient and good right now, how much is this hurting innovation for smaller businesses? Is this good for the economy?
I would like to point out how Microsoft, in 2001 lost an anti-trust lawsuit with the government because internet explorer was pre-installed on Windows.
That is magnitudes less anti-competitive than what some of the tech companies are doing right now. Amazon and Google get a pass because you like them?
Planet Money did a great series on the history of anti-trust law in the U.S.
Here is one on “Big Tech”
A big part of this is the “Amazon Basics” program. Especially with Amazon promoting its own products as the best choice in search results. This is pushing out the third party innovators. People and companies invent new products, and after they get popular, Amazon’s private label swoops in and take over the sales.
I dont really have tiem to watch a 30 minute video but let me elaborate a little.
I like to look at the end result, and the end result is that all these companies have created tremendous value for end-users, and a lot of that has been through working across what would become different companies if they were broken up.
I’d rather go more aggressively after the noncompetitive behaviour and try and make sure there’s space for competitors to emerge in, say, the ad-space. Stricter takeover rules would help as well.
Amazon (and other big tech with cloud hosting platforms) is actually doing a lot for small businesses because they have substantially lowered the barrier of entry for building a web platform. It may be a lot harder for someone who wants to build a global network of server infrastructure to compete with them on that front, but that was going to be a hugely expensive endeavor anyway. AWS is a net gain for society in my book.
Mostly because the service they provide is far more valuable than what a small web hosting business can offer. It’s the quality of their service not necessarily their business tactics that have made it hard for small web hosting to compete.
I like to look at the end result, and the end result is that all these companies have created tremendous value for end-users, and a lot of that has been through working across what would become different companies if they were broken up.
That’s a truism. You can argue that some of these companies have lowered prices for some customers, but price isn’t the same as value either. It’s also a truism to state that these products & services only happened because of increasing integration. There’s no evidence to that that I’m aware of.
Why does Google the search company & Google the ad company need to be owned by the same parent company? Why does Android the phone OS company need to be owned by Google the search & ad company?
Why does AWS need to be owned by Amazon rather than independent and with Amazon as a minority shareholder?
It’s like a bunch of posters on here suddenly forgot about the history of monopolies, or the overwhelming evidence on why long-term they are a horrendous thing for soceity.
As for the EU, it seems you’re not aware of the Commission’s veiled threats to break up Alphabet, nor of the European Parliament’s vote on backing a report that recommended the break up of Alphabet.
And I think that is the argument Amazon would make, and a competitor asking to bring an anti-trust lawsuit would say that Amazon’s web hosting services tied with Amazon’s other services, amazon pay, and all of the other services amazon has tied into their web hosting service. I am not saying that they would win with that argument in court, especially as there are plenty of other hosting companies there, Cloudflare, dreamhost, rackspace, but one could argue that Amazon is not competing fairly, which is why their service quality is so high.
Anti-trust is about protecting the economy and consumers. Just like how having a dictatorship would make things a lot easier for a group of people, doesn’t mean it is good for the whole. Competition in the marketplace is a key to capitalism as free democratic elections would be key to Democracy.
You’re saying that it’s bad for consumers that Amazon is dominating because they offer all of these great services at a competitive price. As you say, there are other hosting services out there that consumers can choose. What is the argument that AWS is not competing fairly other than ‘too many great benefits for using it’?
So, I work for a small business. We leverage technology and infrastructure from both Google and Amazon, which allows us to do things that we couldn’t otherwise do on our own. That’s an example.
Yes, historically, benefit to the consume does in fact matter when considering this kind of thing.
Microsoft’s anti-competitive practices weren’t beneficial to consumers. They actually worked to prevent effective competition.
Google’s 90% share of search doesn’t prevent you from accessing someone else’s search engine… the problem is that no one else has actually MADE a search engine that’s better than Google. If someone else was actually able to do search better, and somehow Google crushed them, then I’d be more worried, but I don’t think that’s been the case thus far.
Likewise, Amazon has totally transformed the retail market, but they’re still only a small portion of retail. Of course, they’re growing much more than any other retailer, but how much of this is simply due to old school retailers failing to adapt to the new market? Should I be forced to go to the mall to buy electronics, just to prop up some failing brick and mortar retailer? What exactly is the value in that old retail model?
I did (although in fairness, I had it going in the background while doing other work). It’s actually not a bad piece at all, although I don’t necessarily agree with his conclusions.
I think that it’s absolutely worth applying scrutiny to the tech giants. I’m just not sold on the idea that we should be breaking them up. They aren’t monopolies in any real sense of the word. Hell, in many cases, they are directly competing with each other. But we’re seeing a major technological shift in our economy, and that’s causing major disruptions. But these companies are providing major value to consumers… a lot of that disruption is simply things getting better.
Please explain how the anti-trust lawsuit about i.e. being preinstalled on Microsoft Windows computers was hurting customers? Did Microsoft block me from installing firefox or chrome?
