Hearing the Falconer #24 ~ 1-April-2019 ~ Should We Break Up Big Tech Companies?

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world....
from The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats, 1919

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

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1-April-2019: Should We Break Up the Big Tech Companies?
Elizabeth Warren and the Big Tech Companies
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Should we break up the big tech companies?

If people on the left always want to break up big tech companies that is going too far in one direction while if people on the right always want to defend and protect big tech companies that is going too far in the other direction.

It seems to me the smart and moderate position would be to break up big companies that are using their size and power to do harm while leaving the others alone. In other words, the criteria for breaking up a company should not be "How big is it?" but rather "How is it using its power?"

One of Warren's objections is to big tech companies who control a marketplace and also sell goods in that marketplace. I think this would be like a company that owns a mall and also has its own stores in the mall.

Personally, I don't think this would be enough, by itself, to justify breaking up big companies. If we see clear evidence that the big companies are not allowing other companies to compete fairly with them, THAT would be the time to break them up.

This is the kind of decision that should be made only after expert analysis by professional economists on a case-by-case basis.

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The "Hearing the Falconer" Library

Books for Independent Thinkers

Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today

The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It

Unapologetically Moderate: My Search for the Rational Center in American Politics

The Deliberate Moderate: Influencing From the Middle

Eisenhower: The White House Years

The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison

Lincoln

Reflections of a Radical Moderate

Washington: A Life

The Reluctant Republican: My Fight for the Moderate Majority

Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party

Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life

Theodore Roosevelt: A Life

The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides

Beyond Red and Blue: How Twelve Political Philosophies Shape American Debates