This book provides a really excellent introduction to the history and current state of US antitrust law. The author, Tim Wu, is a Columbia professor with former jobs in the Obama administration, SCOTUS, and other policy positions. The book manages to say a lot in a relatively small volume. I finished it in 4-5 hours of reading, but I feel I've learned a great deal.
The book begins with an overview of the Gilded Age and the age of antitrust action, with particular attention to Louis Brandeis and President Theodore Roosevelt. I appreciated the balance of providing historical context without turning into a history text. The description of Brandeis’ humble beginnings made me want to read a biography of him, which the final section solicitously recommended.
Next the book continued into the middle of the century with discussions of antitrust cases in the 1950s and 1960s, and then the entry of the Chicago School of antitrust thought, primarily pioneered by Aaron Director and his protege Robert Bork. It was at this point in the book that I learned something that I suppose should have been obvious, that the term “to bork” actually refers to the judicial confirmation fiasco of Bork. Given that I've already read several books that reference this particular shitshow, it's strange that I never put two and two together on that subject. The author discusses the fact that Bork manipulated the interpretation of the Sherman Antitrust Act to essentially shackle it with unnecessarily high thresholds of certainty before action could be taken on antitrust cases.
Subsequently, the book discusses the current situation of antitrust laws, showing the massive decline of antitrust action since the Bush administration's decision to allow multiple massive mergers and consolidations, and the refusal of the Obama administration to make waves on that front. The author then discusses in brief his prescriptions for change.
Overall I thought this was a superb book. It was a pleasure to read owing in part to the author's excellent writing and apt witticisms.
No, AT&T was the jealous God of telecommunications, brooking no rivals, accepting no sharing, and swallowing any children with even the most remote chance of unseating Kronos.
It was during the defense of IBM and AT&T that the Chicago School and the opponents of antitrust finally found ways to stop worrying and fall in love with the monopoly form.
Amazon, meanwhile, wants nothing more than to serve the consumer, which is great, and you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
Writing like this not only makes the reading of dry topics like antitrust law easier, but actually makes the reader want to continue the topic. Despite my satisfaction with the compactness of the book, I was saddened to be finished so soon.
A point that I want to explore further is the ability of small groups of the electorate to effect change in their favor. On page 56, the author cites the work of the scholar Mancur Olson on political influence. Olson concludes that relatively small, focused groups can effect policy change they favor, despite the protestations of larger but less dedicated groups. That discussion brings to mind lobbying groups, and groups of voters who tend to coalesce around a few core opinions. An example of this is the Israel lobby and the influence it holds in Washington. An excellent resource on this subject is Mearsheimer's The Israel Lobby. Another example is the acrimonious state of Cuba-America relations decades after the conclusion of the Cold War. Descendants of Cuban refugees have long voted against normalized relations with Cuba, and have often thrown their electoral support behind politicians who vow to keep Cuba-America relations on ice. An example is the great support Reagan enjoyed among the Cuban-American community.
The author also discusses how different our economic situation has become since the demise of concentrated antitrust law. Particularly in the tech sector, the acquisition of startups by large, established companies has become so commonplace as to be a meme. Many entrepreneurs aspire to found a successful startup and then to sellout to a corporate behemoth as soon as possible. The case of the “serial entrepreneur” is often nothing but this behavior repeated ad nauseam. This occurrence is so frequent as to feature in a Rick and Morty episode, in which the Devil founds an Internet startup with a vague to nonexistent purpose which is immediately purchased by Google.
Another interesting topic briefly discussed is the tendency of some firms to blatantly copy their competitor's products, often in ways that don't constitute breaches of the law, but certainly do infringe on their competitor's ability to exist. The author cites Google's copying of Yelp reviews into its own review system, despite the protestations of Yelp and an eventual FTC demand that Google stop this behavior. Another example cited is Facebook's cloning of Snapchat features, which I and my friends have laughed about before, but which poses a real existential threat to a seemingly innovative company. Contrast this is US governmental and corporate whining about Chinese IP theft. It seems hypocritical for the government and these firms to complain about Chinese IP theft, while the same behavior is treated with a warning or ignored by our regulatory agencies.
Another topic briefly discussed that I've had rattling in my head for some time is the technical, legal definition of a monopoly. I was surprised to learn some time ago that the legal definition of a monopoly often only applies to vertical monopolies, in which a company has captured a significant segment of the supply chain needed for production.ยน Historically, this was the complaint against companies like Standard Oil, which not only controlled the sale of oil and derivative products, but also the refineries, pipelines, wells/fields, and railroads used to produce and transport the oil. Such vertical consolidation was the disease that antitrust laws frequently sought to cure. Horizontal monopolization concerns firms involved in many disparate sectors, which more aptly describes the tech giants. Apple has recently announced a credit card, adding to its current offering of Apple Pay. Amazon has purchased Whole Foods. Google now intends to do defense contracting work, produces in home products like Nest and Google Home, and now offers their own cell service through Google Fi, in addition to Google Fiber. These firms research autonomous vehicles, medicine, and financial products, in addition to their other fields of advertising, hardware, internet sales and social media. It seems imperative that we require some of these firms to sell off some of their ventures. Otherwise, their reach is overly broad, and they are capable of becoming too large.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in law or technology, and it was pretty fun even if you aren't particularly interested in either of those subjects. The author is quite knowledgeable, and writes well and in places humorously. The policy prescriptions at the end of the book are brief and seem well-researched.
Finally, the book ends in a way that I really appreciate, with a recommended reading list. The author recommends a number of books, some of them quite technical in nature. The books that I found most interesting on the recommended list were Urofsky's Louis D. Brandeis: A Life, Hovenkamp's The Antitrust Enterprise: Principle and Execution, Hofstadter's Social Darwinism in American Thought, Chandler's The Visible Hand, Bork's The Antitrust Paradox and Fishkin and Forbath's The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution.