The Greatest Accomplices: Why Most Existing Monopolies Should Be Broken Up

By Gravelord

More likely than not, you’ve witnessed a so-called libertarian speaking in defense of companies such as Twitter, Facebook, Google, or Tesla in the past. “They are private companies”, the argument goes. But just how true is that? Does our current economic landscape really allow us to judge companies by libertarian standards?

To put it bluntly: no. One of the best arguments against democracy is how easily corruptible the government is by corporations seeking to maintain their established monopolies by financing anti-capitalist politicians who will actively constrain entrepreneurship and hinder the rise of competitors. In many countries, including the USA, this can be done legally through PACs and other forms of lobbying. The heads of many of these corporations or conglomerates also make no effort to present themselves as impartial; for example, by involving themselves (and financing) progressive organizations and think-tanks that push for increased immigration, affirmative action, gun and speech control, etc. The CEO of Reddit, for instance, is on the board of directors of the ADL’s Center for Technology and Society, an organ dedicated to combating “online hate”, which we all know is a buzzword for dissident behavior.

A lot of big corporations also receive massive government subsidies, which are seldom well-spent, in order to remain operational or to finance “innovation”. For instance, Tesla has reportedly received over 3.5 billion dollars in public money since 2007 in the form of subsidies. Likewise, Facebook has received over 333 million since 2010. There is nothing new about established monopolies cooperating with the federal government. Big Tech has found itself in scandals over the sale or distribution of user data several times, including to the NSA; Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and others have also had a sum of their developments and operations financed by DoD and AFRL contracts.

Should these monopolies really be held to the same standards as regular private businesses? I don’t think so. One of the key points in Hoppe’s message is the removal of subversive agents from society, such as democrats and communists, which would naturally (and unsurprisingly) encompass the heads of most of these monopolies. All corporations who have cooperated with the state in order to further their interests, whether economic or ideological, should be considered accomplices of the current order and punished accordingly.

The issue of how the breakup of these monopolies would be brought about is infinitely more intricate and far beyond the desirable length of this article, so for the sake of simplicity, I will equate them with the federal government and suggest the auctioning of all of their assets to the very competitors they have been continuously screwing over. At least this issue helps us tell real libertarians apart from establishment shills more easily.

Sources:

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/07/03/google-tesla-apple-facebook-rake-in-massive-subsidies-report/

https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-cia-and-nsa-research-grants-for-mass-surveillance/

https://www.cnet.com/news/anti-defamation-league-taps-tech-giants-to-fight-hate/