break monopolies

The book has much to contribute to the debate that there should be on the reform of competition law Break’em upde Zephyr Teachout (All Points Books, 2020, Nueva York).

The book reflects the effects of the trend in antitrust law from the time of the Sherman Act to the present day. He evokes the golden days of competition law at the end of the 19th century and Frank Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal and criticizes the effects that the relaxation of antitrust law has had on our society: the chickenization of our lives.

Great wage inequality; abuse of farmers and farmers by big buyers of produce and sellers of fertilizers, such as Monsanto and Bayer; junk jobs created by big business; the abuse of small businesses by companies like Walmart that allow them to offer low prices to consumers at the cost of skinning medium-sized businesses; the discontent of the employees by the routinized and badly paid jobs on the part of the big corporations; the distancing of voters from political parties; the gigantism of technology companies; plutocracy in a word.

A courageous defense of the necessary reform of antitrust law. Competition law must return to its roots, which includes breaking up some large companies, like when the monopoly of Standard Oil and American Tobacco and the oligopoly of AT&T broke up. This must not be the only antitrust policy, but it must return to the fore in the fight for economic democracy. Breaking up monopolies, as in the past, has also had positive effects for the economy, as the resulting companies compete with each other and soon become large again. In addition, they have a liberalizing effect on social energies and a leveling effect on social classes. Breaking monopolies should not be the only antitrust measure, as in the past, but it should play a major role in a new dynamic in pursuit of equality and progressive capitalism proposed by Joseph Stiglitz in progressive capitalism and Tim Wu in The curse of bigness.

Tim Wu also analyzes the risks of the existence of big business for democracy: the rise of fascism has a lot to do with the existence of business titans that ally themselves with political power against democracy, as happened in Germany. Nazi of the mid-thirties of the last century. It is national security to prevent giants like Google, Microsoft and especially Facebook. The competition authorities must be much tougher with the acquisitions of companies by the dominant companies that reinforce their market power, are their eventual competitors and amplify the operating radius of big tech, such as the purchase of WhatsApp and Instagram by part of Facebook, which went blank on the desks of these large conglomerates. The most shameful thing for competition authorities almost everywhere in the last few decades has been to allow in front of their very eyes the creation of corporate titans with the green light of governments. There has been no relevant sector in the economy, in which, under the auspices of the Chicago School and the oblivion of the structuralist School of Harvard and the ordoliberals, it has not been consolidated in the hands of a few participants: airlines, oil companies, companies consultants. And the benefits for the well-being of consumers have not gone beyond a superficial analysis of complicated econometric speculations, absent from the reality of the business world.

It is a pity that López Obrador has considered the Federal Competition Commission as an ally of neoliberals and conservatives, when it could have played an essential role in separating economic and political power and in favor of social equality. It will be the paradox of the current Fourth Transformation: a pseudo-left government that will have left the poor in a worse situation than before its implementation. It is a mistake to be with Obrador!