(2021-01-13) Doctorow Pluralistic Will Biden Bust Trusts

Pluralistic: 13 Jan 2021 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow. Will Biden bust trusts?

Beyond key appointments, a key test for the Joe Biden administration will be its posture on antitrust, the area of economic doctrine that has been most transformed by the debate over capitalism.

40 years ago, Reaganites managed to convert antitrust from a political doctrine to an economic one: rather than asking whether a monopoly would pervert good policy for workers, citizens, and institutions, antitrust narrowed to asking whether monopolies were raising prices.

When Barack Obama ran for office in 2007, he promised real action on antitrust. Taking office in the midst of the Great Financial Crisis (Great Recession), Obama had the unprecedented opportunity to make good on those promises. That's not what he did.

The Obama admin oversaw massive concentration in healthcare, transport, defense contracting, entertainment, media, tech, agribusiness, and other key US industries. At the time, officials boasted of their record.

Obama's antitrust enforcement record is terrible – he didn't just squander the opportunity of the Great Financial Crisis; his enforcers actually made things worse, leaving midterm to work for white-shoe firms that worked to secure mergers.

But Obama's antitrust enforcers did do some aggressive enforcement…against workers. His administration set records in punishing trade associations of independent contractors, from electricians to building superintendants to church organists.

The other Obama signature policy – the ACA (ObamaCare) – encouraged health care monopoly mergers on the theory that this would provide coordinated care. Today, these monopolists provide price-gouging and a "medical assembly line" that cares only for shareholders' financial health.

we need to pour on the pressure to make Rohit Chopra the next Chairman of the FTC. Chopra is fearless and tough, who has advocated that repeat corporate offenders face breakups, dismissal of top execs, and bonus clawbacks