"The concept of 'corporate feudalism' is not viable"
In the political landscape of the United States, a new movement has emerged, the Neo-Brandeisian movement, which holds significant influence in the Warren movement and the Biden administration. This movement is concerned that excessive corporate power could lead to political power, a concern that has been at the forefront of their antitrust policies.
However, there are voices within the general economic community, including the author of this article, who believe that the current focus on antitrust, particularly against tech companies like Meta and Google, may be out-of-touch with the economic issues that are actually concerning regular people. Issues such as inflation and government function disruption are what people are currently grappling with, not the focus on big corporations.
Key figures in the Neo-Brandeisian network influencing antitrust policy include Lina Khan, Tim Wu, and Jonathan Kanter. Their concerns, primarily political, are rooted in the fear of corporate takeover of the country. On the other hand, the author's support for stronger antitrust was based on economic concerns, such as prices, wages, and growth.
The Biden administration, in many ways, can be considered a Warren administration due to the significant intellectual, ideological, and institutional influence of Warren and her allies. Biden's FTC chair, Lina Khan, for instance, has approached antitrust from a perspective of corporate power rather than consumer welfare.
The feuding factions of the Bernie leftists and Warren progressives have united to attack a new foe, the Abundance Agenda. This agenda, championed by center-left types like Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson, and Matt Yglesias, ignores corporate power and is agnostic about how to achieve more housing, energy, transit, health care, etc.
Elizabeth Warren has blamed corporate power ("greedflation") for the post-pandemic inflation and has called for price controls as a solution. Biden and Kamala Harris have echoed this call to some degree.
However, the author's perspective on the ineffectiveness of populist anti-corporate rhetoric is ironic given the negative impact of Trump's tariffs on the American economy and Elon Musk's DOGE on government functions. Derek Thompson's viewpoint on the Abundence Agenda is that if building more infrastructure enhances the power or boosts the profits of large corporations, it's not worth it.
Zephyr Teachout, a Fordham law professor, however, believes that taking on private equity cartels and monstrous platform monopolies like Google and Meta would unlock more innovation and creativity. This perspective, while differing from the author's, underscores the ongoing debate within the economic community about the best approach to addressing corporate power and its impact on the American economy and society.
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