30 Comments
Apr 12, 2021Liked by Matt Stoller

Great post. On the Logitech piece, I'm still curious why they would shut down Harmony AND sit on the unused database in perpetuity, as opposed to selling the assets they're shutting down. There's obviously going to be a disruption, but shouldn't we expect some type of new life for universal remotes post Logitech?

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Well done, Matt—believe this is your best newsletter yet!

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' “No small group of people,” Thomas wryly observed, “control email.” '

The reason for this (as opposed to the close control of e.g. Facebook) is that the communication protocols for email are public knowledge (RFC 561 ff) and can be implemented by anyone. Part of the solution to combating Big Tech is to open the interfaces to competitors; when social media platforms become commoditized, again, no small group of people will control them.

Policing of content, OTOH, is a separate issue.

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“a ‘fusion strategy,’ with white social conservatives and big business libertarians”

The addition of “white” is at one with the current D-media narrative, but doesn’t match either the present reality or the trend. Social conservatives are attracted to the R’s irrespective of race/skin color. It’s quite annoying to find that narrative in a reading space otherwise very articulate, well considered and free from false media narratives.

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The piece is well written, but it still seems somewhat heavy handed to simply depict Republicans - and perhaps conservatives generally as merely conflicted between social conservatism and big money donors.

A more truthful portrayal would show them working through an ideological bind between different levels of infringements on personal liberties. Ideologically, they want to allow people individual liberty and volition - and usually want to make sure that happens through lessened regulation. They seem to be caught between wanting to protect personal freedoms of expression of the individual - but can only do this through more regulation and government intrusion to fend off big tech.

It is hard to tie this to "big money donors" when you yourself point out that 100 top corporate executives are looking at "how to coordinate in opposing conservative voting rights legislation." Why would corps be actively looking to oppose conservatives who they consider in their pockets?

Seems high level that conservatives are in a bind where their original ideological bent has disserved them and needs some rethinking, realigning, and refitting to the practical realities of today. It is akin to current predicament of liberals/progressives who generally are for increased government regulation and enforcement when they serve them – e.g. social welfare programs – and are ardently opposed to them when they do not – e.g. unchecked law enforcement and voting regulation.

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I like the article, but it's disengenous to mention Repubs controlled by corporations, but Democrats getting 2-1 donations from the fortune 500, and their recent bills where they would do things like fight against more PPP funding while crafting trillion dollar bills of giveaways. I agree on the repub part, but the Dems are winning the race on being controlled by corporations in recent times. How many of the fortune 500 do you see speaking to Republican initiatives, vs dems. That part was disingenuous. Also, the "voter suppression bill" in Georgia, give me a break. The laws they encoded are way more favorable to dem voting priorities than they were in 2018, some things are more limited than the cv adjusted temporary rules for 2020. Now dropboxes in every county are law, voter ID is superior than signatures, you can give water but have to be 150 feet from the building and election locations can still supply it, no campaigning (harrassing) people in the lines, and they even made it where if you don't have a license you can acquire a voter ID, or simply put the last 4 digits of your social on the ballot envelope. Are you for ANY election security? Or just ballot harvesting with unsecured dropboxes, whoopsie no chain of custody documentation issues, and fighting removing people who have moved and died from voter roles?

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Thanks for the write up.

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Matt, terrific piece 4-14 on errors Bessemer union activists made. They goofed on several fronts. https://www.thenation.com/podcast/economy/amazon-alabama-hunter-biden/

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founding

Based off what I read in Goliath, would you say the GOP struggle lies between a libertarian soft-Mellonism, and a reemerging Theodore Rooseveltian type attempt to assert governmental control (or in this case just GOP influence) over existing monopolies?

I just don’t see much Brandeisian type rhetoric originating from the GOP. Thomas’ shift to common carrier seems designed to say that it’s not the market power he finds distressing, it’s the fact that incendiary GOP rhetoric / conspiracy theories now have a harder time getting distributed on monopolistic platforms. As you rightly point out in Goliath, both the Mellonistic and TR type approaches carry with them distinct anti-democratic dangers.

The current GOP approach to anti-monopoly seems to reflect this. The offense companies commit aren’t their crimes in the marketplace, which are plenty, it’s criticism of GOP power and how they wield it. Hence the focus on tech above all else, along with McConnell’s hilariously schizophrenic warnings to Corporate America to shut up and hand over their money. In this way, the GOP anti-monopoly approach seems to mirror China’s current spats with their tech giants, and less anything from Brandeis.

The Dems also have their Mellonists and TR types as you rightly point out, but I think also possess a genuinely Brandeisian wing. I don’t see any Brandeisian GOP politicians right now. The American Compass think tank seems to want to move the GOP to this path, but I think motivations matter. The Congressional GOP anti-monopolists would like to work the refs, rather than change the fundamental game. The nitpicking the House Judiciary GOP members are engaging in currently, on a tech antitrust report they supposedly helped write, seems to support this.

Always appreciate your work and commitment to highlighting the economic stories that impact so many of our lives. Keep it up.

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It's not Big Business on one side, because the Republicans are increasingly no longer a party of big business. That's one of the many consequences of the debacle of establishment Republicanism 2014-16 and their inability to stop Trump. It's more and more a middle- to working-class party. Business owners are still there, but they're not the big national and multinational companies, which are more and more caving into the Great Awokening, the profound corruption of America's commanding institutions by brainwashing, intimidation, and indoctrination. See your fellow Substack writers John McWhorter and Bari Weiss.

Main Street and Wall Street Republicanism have been in tension since the days after the Civil War. People nowadays forget there was once a vigorous Republican progressive wing as well. It went into decline during the New Deal and WWII, ending up in isolationism and nativism, or Senator McCarthy (who started his career as a progressive, believe it or not). The Tea Party tried to synthesize a half-neoliberal view with a half-Main Street view. That attempt failed, as it just exposed the fault lines. The more libertarian younger voters (real libertarians) are interested in a gold standard or Bitcoin, as a cure for the monetary insanity that has dominated our economy since the 1990s and has led to boom and bust and increasingly blatant wealth inequality. Cantillon effect indeed. (I just the other night had a conversation about Cantillon with a half-and-half gold-Bitcoin devotee, who raised the topic first.) The social conservatives-Christians have given up on the dead neoliberal consensus for their own reasons. See you fellow Substack writer Rod Dreher.

The Republican party has fewer and fewer defenders of S&P500/Fortune 500-style corporate America. And demography is on the Republicans' side, or at least running against the Democrats. The long-term trend of movement away from big cities and metro areas, from north to south, from coast to interior, accelerating since around 2014 (after a post-2008 pause) bodes ill for the Blue State elite. The 2010 census and reapportionment and what's coming the wake of the 2020 census are going to be wrenching.

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Outstanding analyses and updates -- congratulations !!

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That Hawley bill is interesting. Banning acquisitions for any large company ($100b in market cap) would force the giants to start investing in R&D again. It would also totally change the VC industry. The standard model right now is not to build companies for the long term. The model is to come up with something that is interesting to one of the giants and get acquired. Some firms even skip the "come up with something" part. They just assemble a bunch of top talent in a hot area, like AI, and then have one of the giants throw $50m at them to bulk hire talent... like a big signing bonus. Even among the companies that go public and have a business, the goal is to make enough noise and cause enough trouble for the giants to eventually get acquired. If these companies actually had to establish a long term business with profits and whatnot without the possibility of acquisition, VC becomes a lot less attractive. It might backfire and dry up VC funds for start ups.

Where are the Democrats with any ideas of this sort? It seems like an advantage the Republicans will always have is that they understand how business works... and are interested in business.

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The ideological crisis on the right is of great interest to me, especially because the left does not seem conflicted at all about the third, second, or even first-order consequences of their rule. Ultimately, I feel the GOP will rely too much on their grievances, and fail to couple this with substantive and principled rhetoric and action along the affirmative axis. The right’s historic deference to corporate interest has made them too cynical to imagine the way forward on these essential issues. Right-wing ideology is offended by the tech sector’s overreach. But the right-wing force structure fears the implement that would need to be developed to rectify this overreach. It is a political puzzle without a clear solution and requires a level of leadership that crisis has a chance of producing, however slim.

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Consider the corporation from a social conservative point of view. Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co. enshrined the corporation as person, due to the perversion of the Fourteenth Amendment. The real persons which that amendment was written for ended up with Plessy v. Ferguson in that same era.

We are told in scripture that man was created in the image of his Maker, and in Genesis God created man, not the corporation. What the SCOTUS of that era did was grant superior right to the artificial person, created by the hand of man like the golden calf. While the real flesh and blood living persons created in the image of their maker ended up with separate but "equal." And the very act on incorporation, the inherent value of limited liability, is to limit the rights of redress by actual living persons.

And we see the corporations of today, woke-washing their misdeeds by various acts. Take for example a soda pop maker from Atlanta, selling a product that is bad for human health; virtue signaling on electoral enfranchisement. Corporations LARP at having souls, but were one expecting to find real actual virtue from a corporation; the same question asked by the angels in the Gospel of Luke applies, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?"

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