I've often thought the best anti-hero would be the laughably evil billionaire who explicitly states his intentions so that people quickly turn against capitalism. (not that I think that's what Hoffman is doing)
I recently read Dark Money and have a post coming out about it Sunday, but what really struck me in the book is how so many evil billionaires learned quickly that most people actually hate their ideology, so they told all their wealthy friends in donor calls "Hey, what we want is unpopular. We have to disguise our intentions and make people think what we want is actually good."
In a perfect world, yes! Totally! Antitrust benefits mostly the same people that Unions benefit! But, and you discuss it but I don't think enough, Union members will vote most often for their best interest. And sometimes their best interest is antithetical to antitrust. This will probably always be the case until Union membership is strong enough to survive strong antitrust enforcement.
But for now it's just the state of things, and I think that's okay. I don't see it as fighting over scraps from a wealthy villain, but rather two competing forces pulling at corporate dominance. I'd bet a bunch of money that Microsoft would have rather not gotten out of CWA's way but did what it had to do because of the threat of antitrust. This is a good thing! At least, it seems like a good thing! If the end result of antitrust is to drive more companies to embrace Unions, that's at least an acceptable outcome, right? Not perfect, but acceptable?
Yes-- there is probably some equilibrium where union density gets high enough that unions are less prone to being put in this trap by companies but I'm not sure what the number is.
I guess I'm trying to take the more optimistic road and not see it as a "trap," but rather forcing a company to choose a lesser of two evils ("evils" from the shareholder side of things, natch). A strong Union at, to borrow from your example, Microsoft has knock-on effects for the industry and for workers as a whole, which has other positive benefits down the line. Microsoft is already too big for its own good, and other companies like Apple, Amazon, etc. have gotten that way without being even neutral to Unions. A unionized behemoth is preferable to a peeing-in-bottles behemoth, at least in the short term.
This also has no bearing on EU member countries suing the ever-living Wienerschnitzel out of any of them for non-competitive practices, at least I hope.
I’m so grateful for this very good piece that helped articulate some unformed thoughts that had been clanging around in my head. One thing that strikes me about the leftist circles that I travel in is a lot of romanticization of strikes and visible labor action, whereas antitrust and regulatory activities seem “boring” in comparison. For whatever reason, it seems like during the Progressive era and the New Deal era there was far more public attention focused on regulation and awareness of trust busting. I keep running across tons of New Deal regulations that were dismantled across the 90s and 00s, and so maybe the legacy of antitrust work is just less culturally legible compared with the legacy of labor. Not a lot of Ida Tarbells around these days…
I've often thought the best anti-hero would be the laughably evil billionaire who explicitly states his intentions so that people quickly turn against capitalism. (not that I think that's what Hoffman is doing)
I recently read Dark Money and have a post coming out about it Sunday, but what really struck me in the book is how so many evil billionaires learned quickly that most people actually hate their ideology, so they told all their wealthy friends in donor calls "Hey, what we want is unpopular. We have to disguise our intentions and make people think what we want is actually good."
In a perfect world, yes! Totally! Antitrust benefits mostly the same people that Unions benefit! But, and you discuss it but I don't think enough, Union members will vote most often for their best interest. And sometimes their best interest is antithetical to antitrust. This will probably always be the case until Union membership is strong enough to survive strong antitrust enforcement.
But for now it's just the state of things, and I think that's okay. I don't see it as fighting over scraps from a wealthy villain, but rather two competing forces pulling at corporate dominance. I'd bet a bunch of money that Microsoft would have rather not gotten out of CWA's way but did what it had to do because of the threat of antitrust. This is a good thing! At least, it seems like a good thing! If the end result of antitrust is to drive more companies to embrace Unions, that's at least an acceptable outcome, right? Not perfect, but acceptable?
Yes-- there is probably some equilibrium where union density gets high enough that unions are less prone to being put in this trap by companies but I'm not sure what the number is.
I guess I'm trying to take the more optimistic road and not see it as a "trap," but rather forcing a company to choose a lesser of two evils ("evils" from the shareholder side of things, natch). A strong Union at, to borrow from your example, Microsoft has knock-on effects for the industry and for workers as a whole, which has other positive benefits down the line. Microsoft is already too big for its own good, and other companies like Apple, Amazon, etc. have gotten that way without being even neutral to Unions. A unionized behemoth is preferable to a peeing-in-bottles behemoth, at least in the short term.
This also has no bearing on EU member countries suing the ever-living Wienerschnitzel out of any of them for non-competitive practices, at least I hope.
Hamilton - great piece. As always.
I’m so grateful for this very good piece that helped articulate some unformed thoughts that had been clanging around in my head. One thing that strikes me about the leftist circles that I travel in is a lot of romanticization of strikes and visible labor action, whereas antitrust and regulatory activities seem “boring” in comparison. For whatever reason, it seems like during the Progressive era and the New Deal era there was far more public attention focused on regulation and awareness of trust busting. I keep running across tons of New Deal regulations that were dismantled across the 90s and 00s, and so maybe the legacy of antitrust work is just less culturally legible compared with the legacy of labor. Not a lot of Ida Tarbells around these days…
Which still relies on anti-trust being enforced which is often not the case. There is a fix for that.
Second graph, sentence with “by” I think should say “buy”.