Northwestern Deo Fridman Aff NUSO Round3

1AC
Market Concentration ADV

Advantage one is MARKET CONCENTRATION
The competitive process is collapsing because of concentrated market power. Players
with leverage are exploiting this to consolidate their positions at the expense of labor
and productivity, making collapse and world war inevitable.
Jan Eeckhout 21, professor at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, “Epilogue,” The Profit Paradox,
06/01/2021, pp. 275–282
Like over a century ago, we’re experiencing an epoch of similar progress, and, like then, the gains of that progress are unequally
distributed. Since 1980, the few have amassed all the benefits of pro gress while most see no gains at all. Th ere is a clear chain of events
originating with dominant firms grabbing extreme market power. This has profound implications for work, the source of
income for the majority of the people. Market power leads to wage stagnation and extreme wage inequality, and it
stymies social mobility and economic dynamism. The deteriorat- ing labor market in turn affects some people’s health and
overall well-being. But it is not only the workers who feel let down; the small and medium entrepreneurs are frustrated as well.
They can barely keep their establishments afloat because market power is concentrated in a few dominant
firms that squeeze their returns and shuts down their businesses.
Market forces—t he lack of competition challenging big business— are not only failing the poor, they are also failing the m iddle class
and small business owners. Big- business capitalism is failing the majority of the house holds, where most come out on the short end and do
worse than their parents. Pro-market capitalism is losing out to pro-business.
The central thesis of The Profit Paradox is that technological innovation has
a natural tendency toward accumulating
wealth in few hands. New technologies favor the early adopter who can take the entire market while using the same
technology to entrench power and limit competition in the market. Remember Orwell’s words: “The trouble with competitions is that
somebody wins them.”
We therefore need strong institutions and independent regulation that guarantees and protects competition.
One of the biggest misperceptions is that markets are free and that competition is a natu ral outcome. Most markets work
perfectly fine, but in the advent of new technologies, market failure leads to dominance and the
accumulation of wealth. Only pro-market capitalism can attain healthy competition, which is to the benefit of
all stakeholders in society, including the customers and the workers. Only then can we guarantee that what is good
for business is good for workers.
Often, stakeholder capitalism and corporate responsibility are hailed as the panacea. Unfortunately, they are no more than a drop in the ocean.
Of course, it is beneficial if business o wners care about their workers and make sure that they earn a good living. A large firm that exerts
monopsony power can make life better for its captive workers. The German model of nonconflictual worker repre sen ta tion is an example of
making work work.1 Often, better treatment of workers raises productivity, which is in the interest of the shareholders, too.
Generally, though, corporate responsibility is high on good inten- tions but low on results; it simply d oesn’t work if we expect that the CEOs or
the boards of companies take it upon themselves to reduce their market power, in the pro cess lowering profits and increasing wages. That
would lead to perverse economic decisions and inefficiency. Moreover, the unilateral decision not to exert market power is to the benefit of the
other competitors who do exert market power. Hence, only coordinated action, such as regulation, can resolve the negative effects of market
power.
Most importantly, self- regulation does not work b ecause the problem is economy-w ide: it is like asking the major o wners of fossil fuel–
generating firms to self- regulate emissions and environmental standards. BP and Shell bombard us with advertising that praises how much
they do for the environment, but they also keep selling oil that increases CO2 emissions. What we need instead is policy that regulates the
emissions, such as carbon taxes and cap and trade, for example. That regulation has to come from outside the industry. Once the regulation
is in place, profit- maximizing firms will be as efficient as the market and the regulation demands to generate low emissions energy.
The same holds for the stakeholder capitalism that attempts to reduce the adverse effects of market power that operate economy wide. The
social responsibility of the firm should be to maximize profits through innovation and the use of new technologies. However, we should not
allow firms to make profits from using those technologies that build moats around their castles. Institutions should ensure that there is healthy
competition. If a firm makes excess profits, regulation should facilitate entry of competitors, which leads to lower prices and lower profits in the
long run. This brings innovation and growth, and it leads to more employment and higher wages.
Rather than stakeholder capitalism, I therefore advocate for stronger and ind e pend ent institutions that attain the desired social goals. The
mandate of a competition authority is to protect competition, not competitors or businesses. It should rein in market power and give power to
the market. Most markets work well without much intervention or regulation, but when they d on’t, procompetitive institutions that are in de
pen dent of politics guarantee there is no market failure.
My proposal is therefore a separation of powers to achieve the social objectives: competition by firms in
the market, and regulation of the market by the competition authority. On the level playing field of competition,
firms should be allowed to make profits, as they should be prepared to go bankrupt without bailouts in bad times. The competition
authority’s visible hand will ensure that the market’s “invisible hand,” where firms seek their own gain,
will unintendedly produce the greatest gain for all.
Unfortunately, in
the absence of such institutions, the rise of market power has resulted in widespread
discontent against the backdrop of enormous technological advances and economic progress . Some of this
discontent is simply the wrong perception. Many forget that only over half a century ago people died of pneumonia, for example, or that pov-
erty and standards of living w ere much worse than they are now. But only part of the discontent is misperception; a large part of it is real. And
that is why opinions get extremely polarized, why the gillets jaunes (yel- low vests) demonstrate in France, and why people lose faith in po liti
cal and economic institutions.
And with the COVID-19 pandemic, society

jumps out of the frying pan into the fire. Everything indicates that the
fallout of the 2020 economic crisis is generating even more pronounced inequality. Those most
negatively affected are the low skilled, the poor, minorities, the elderly, those in low-quality housing and
in disadvantaged neighborhoods, the disabled, and the unhealthy. They are all more likely to lose their
jobs, their incomes, and their lives. Of course, not everything is the fault of market power, so let’s not use the pandemic as an
excuse to bash big business. But when, under the guise of a safety net for the unfortunate, a multitrillion-dollar rescue package
disproportionately helps large companies, then the policy responses are making things worse in the long run. Eventually, workers have to pick
up the tab in the form of taxes on labor (or high inflation).
The fact that in April 2020, in the middle of the crisis, US stocks had their best month since 1987 and that they reached new highs by the
summer is bad news. Markets rally because of the multitrillion- dollar bailout with no strings attached and without a need to pay back the
handouts, not because the economy is healthy. This bailout capitalism tilts the scales even more in favor of large companies
with market power. In times of healthy capitalism, it is fine if an airline goes bust because it keeps investors in check to make the best decisions
in the first place. When an investor makes the right decisions and times are good, they make money. And if things go wrong, companies make
losses or even go bankrupt, and the investor loses money. That is what investors in healthy capitalism sign up for.
The argument increasingly is that, like with banks, those megafirms are too big to fail. In a massive downturn such as the COVID-
19 recession, those large firms will drag with them hundreds of thousands of jobs if they go under. Moreover, the bankruptcy of one large firm
will have a knock-on effect that leads to the contagion of bankruptcies among other, smaller firms. The contagion of a virus leads to the
contagion of business failures. The
problem with this argument is that those firms are too big because they have
market power. Had there been more healthy competition with more firms in all markets, those firms
would not have been too big to fail in the first place. In the theatre of a healthy competitive market,
failing is part of the scenario. Now, only the small firms without market power fail.
This lopsided capitalism gets to the heart of the dominance of large corporations and the Profit Paradox. A number
of large, thriving firms that make huge profits for prolonged periods of time is bad for the economy.
We have to stop equating a rising stock market with a healthy economy. And if at the height of an economic
recession, with small businesses closing and unemployment claims at record highs, those stock markets
rally, then we know that market power is propping up some businesses at the expense of labor, t oday and in
the future.
The greatest threat of market power is that its enormous concentration of wealth further entrenches that power. Market power generates
huge profits that allow the few to buy po litic al f avors, which further cements that power. It is a vicious cycle that destroys democracy. In his
grim description of exploitation in the Chicago meatpacking industry at the beginning of the twentieth c entury, Upton Sinclair writes in The
Jungle: “[The businesses] own not merely the l abor of society, they have bought the governments; and everywhere they use their raped and
stolen power to intrench themselves in their privileges, to dig wider and deeper the channels through which the river of profits flows to
them.”2
This pro cess of market power reinforces po liti cal power, and vice versa; wealth creating wealth is not sustainable in the long run. In Ger-
many, the Weimar Republic had tight relations with big business, which led to a rise in industrial cartels. And only a few de cades later the coal
and steel conglomerates provided the defense apparatus for Nazi war- mongering. The ensuing wars, the economic depression, and high infla-
tion decimated small business and the middle class. After the war the alienated small merchants and entrepreneurs ensured that this vicious
cycle between politics and big business was broken. The postwar economy was built around Mittelstand (small business), where procompeti-
tive institutions made space for small and medium enterprises as the engine of growth for the recovering country.3
History has taught us that itis sufficient for a spark in one region to ignite the dynamite everywhere else. In 1914 the
United States did not have the political problems that Germany had, and Teddy Roosevelt’s trust busting was an attempt to
restore the balance toward more equality. But it was not enough, and the globalized economy was brought
down by World War I. Following the war, the United States had major discontent during the Great Depression, and in
World War II the United States was dragged into the world conflict again.
In his recent book The Great Leveler (2017), Walter Scheidel argues that mass violence and catastrophes are the only forces that can
reduce inequality.4 He goes back to the Stone Age and carefully documents how only wars, revolutions, state collapse, and plagues
have managed to restore more equal socie ties. The thesis is that ine quality is so tenacious that only calamitous violence can dismantle it. Will
it be any diff er ent now?
It appears that in
our age of advanced medical technology and information, society has managed to avoid
the COVID-19 virus becoming the next great leveler. Epidemiologists and scientists have educated us on how to use social
distancing, face masks, and gloves to manage the spread of a disease that would in earlier times have been far more deadly. We may have
managed to level the curve of contagion and death and avoided a n eedless social implosion. But COVID-19 has not leveled the
inequality that has grown out of proportion in the past four decades— quite the contrary.
Inequality is as high as it was before World War I. Discontent is everywhere. Only very draconian measures
will revert the course. It helps to look back: “ Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”5 Incidentally, four
Viennese intellectuals in exile, Friedrich von Hayek, Karl Popper, Joseph Schumpeter, and Stefan Zweig, set the tone for a postwar economic
and social order with the objective of avoiding the concentration of power and totalitarianism. They all experienced the dire consequences of a
collapsing order firsthand and ded cated the remainder of their lives to making sure no one else would experience the same ever again.
We cannot ignore how rapid technological progress and tightly interconnected global economies created enormous market power at the turn
of the last century, in the last so- called modern times. The result was a Gilded Age— one where the majority of the workforce saw no gains.
Today, in the current modern times, the economy is edging in the direction of a new Gilded Age. In the
first half of the twentieth century we were able to stop the slow-drifting ship of in equality in the global economy, but it took
two brutal wars and the Great Depression.
Today, the only way to avoid another calamity and restore the economic order is to bet on pro-market reforms
that break the power of megafirms. We need to put the trust back into antitrust, which requires the ambition of a moonshot
and the resources of a Manhattan Project. And if that is not complicated enough, market power, like climate change, is a global problem that
requires international coordination.
We also need to break the link between market power and political power, which are dangerously feeding off each other. We need to keep
money out of politics and politics out of the economy. That means we need to minimize the role of lobbying. In the United States, campaign
finance holds politicians hostage, who suffer acutely from Stockholm syndrome. Campaign finance has a role in many social prob lems, from
mass shootings to the opioid crisis.
But the political influence of big business is also at the heart of the ailments of the economic system. Firms with market power have the
resources to lobby politicians, and they use the lobbying to build larger uncontested empires, which in turn frees up more resources to lobby
even further. In this vicious cycle, megafirms kidnap politicians on issues ranging from data protection (the big tech firms) to the absence of
environmental regulation (the Koch family), and most of all, on the power of those dominant firms to further extend their dominance. Lob-
bying is the main vehicle to create and perpetuate market power. It was like that for the East India Com pany, a master lobbyist, and it is
nothing more than a legalized form of corruption.
Market power concentrates vast resources in the hands of a few, who use those resources and more to perpetuate market power. This poses a
serious threat to democracy. To put it in the words that former US Su- preme Court Justice Louis Brandeis reputedly has spoken, “Americans
might have democracy . . . , or wealth concentrated in a few hands, but they could not have both.” 6
It is easy to blame the capitalist system. It is true that technology and markets inherently lead to
concentration of wealth and inequality, but markets do not operate in a vacuum: even the most rogue form of
capitalism needs institutions and regulation. It needs an army and a police force to guarantee that property rights are
respected, and to foster trust between trading partners that encourages them to make long-t erm investment decisions. But
from this rogue form of laissez- faire capitalism much more intervention and regulation is needed to
ensure that capitalism is also competitive. The current institutions ensure that capitalism is pro-
business. To safeguard democracy and a just division of what society produces, we need regulation and
institutions that foster pro-competitive capitalism. We need that now, before it’s too late!
The consumer welfare standard is the cause---it’s shrinking the labor share of income
through capital accumulation and markups.
Bakir et al. 21, Economics Department Co-Chair & Associate Professor of Economics at Bucknell
University, Ph.D. in Economics from The University of Utah, Megan Hays, Currently Analyst at Greenhill
& Co., Janet Knoedler, Professor of Economics at Bucknell University, Professor of Economics at Bucknell
University, PhD in Economics from The University of Tennessee, Rising Corporate Power and Declining
Labor Share in the Era of Chicago School Antitrust, Journal of Economic Issues, 55:2, Pages 397-407, DOI:
10.1080/00213624.2021.1908802
It is well established that real wages for American workers have been stagnant, or even declining, for four
decades, with this disturbing phenomenon typically attributed to declining unions, outsourcing and
globalization, and federal policies tilted toward the affluent (See Baker and Salop 2015; Knoedler 2019, 306–07; Piketty and Saez 2003).
While these factors have all contributed to the stagnation in real wages, this article provides evidence for another
less examined component—the rising levels of industrial concentration in the U.S. economy. Industrial
concentration has led to rising profit shares, higher price markups, and a decline in business investment.
In this article, we connect those phenomena to the rise of the Chicago School of Antitrust and its more
lenient antitrust treatment of large corporations that parallels the decline in the labor share for U.S.
workers.
First, we briefly examine the emergence of the Chicago School of Antitrust and its link to the increased levels of
industrial concentration. We then turn to an analysis of the U.S. manufacturing sector and components of
the profit rate to provide evidence for the rising profit shares and the slower capital accumulation in the
highly concentrated sectors of U.S. manufacturing. Through analysis of the data on both rising
concentration and declining labor share, we argue that the laissez-faire bent of the Chicago School of
Antitrust toward corporate bigness should be recognized as another strong contributor to rising income
inequality in the United States over this period.
A Very Brief History of Antitrust
American antitrust came to legal fruition with the passage of the Sherman Act in 1890, intentionally written as a broad anti-monopoly statute,
followed by the Clayton and Federal Trade Commission Acts in 1914. During this period regarded as the rise of big business, early court cases as
well as economists showcased differing views over the benefits and costs of large corporations with market power.1 While recognizing cost
savings and market expansion as good for consumers, many economists and courts during this period were nonetheless alarmed about the
economic and political power embodied in these firms (Letwin 1965, 71–77; Mayhew, 1998. See also, for example, Dorfman 1971). In part, for
these reasons, throughout the 1920s, antitrust theory and policy remained dormant.2
But in the wake of the second great merger wave of the 1920s (Scherer 1990, 153–98), followed by the Great Depression, activist antitrust took
hold, influenced by Franklin Roosevelt’s Brains Trusters and a renewed concern about the impact of market power on the larger economy (See
Kovacic and Shapiro 2000, 49). Subsequently, the 1940–1970 period became the “Golden Age of Antitrust,” characterized by interventionist
interpretations of the antitrust statutes by both policy makers and economists who acknowledged the negative impacts of industrial
concentration and anticompetitive conduct (See Stucke and Ezrachi 2017). The theoretical approach was exemplified by the Harvard School of
Antitrust through its “structure-conduct-performance”3 paradigm, which highlighted the ability of firms with large market shares to maintain
their dominance by creating barriers to entry, in turn enabling them to charge price markups and earn above-normal profits.4 A theoretical and
policy consensus emerged that market power presented harms to consumers and to the larger economy (Kovacic and Shapiro 2000, 44–52).5
And, as William Shepherd concludes, activist antitrust helped make the U.S. economy more competitive at that time by the early 1980s
(Shepherd 1982, 624).
Concerns about activist antitrust policy among some judges and some economists brought the Chicago School of Antitrust to prominence.6 In
theoretical circles, the Chicago School posited that superior efficiency is the sole reason that a firm can maintain market power; otherwise,
market share would inevitably be eroded by competitive market forces (See Adams and Brock 1991, 43–80). In policy circles, the Chicago School
advised that monopolies that are the result of efficiencies should be encouraged.7 By embracing the efficiency defense (See Bork 1993, 107–
110, 124–127, 246–249), and contending that the market will almost always organize itself in the most beneficial way for both corporations and
consumers, the Chicago School promulgated the notion that antitrust enforcement does more harm than good by interfering in market
processes.8 These judges and economists made the Chicago School a cornerstone of modern U.S. antitrust, leading to a decrease in antitrust
oversight of big corporations. In short, the Chicago School of Antitrust introduced into the legal treatment of large firms with market power a
“preference for liberty of contract and the associated ideal of competition free from government power, whereas traditional antitrust rests on a
preference for eliminating gross inequalities in the marketplace and the associated ideal of competition free from private power” (Adams and
Brock 1991, 126).9
The result of four decades of Chicago School antitrust theory and policy on industrial structure in the United States can
now be seen in today’s increased levels of industrial concentration. As Jonathan Baker and Steven Salop (2015)
contend, the United States now has a “market power” problem which contributes to slower overall growth
and increased economic inequality.10 Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors (CEA 2016) highlighted its concern with
decreased competition in the U.S. economy. Gustavo Grullon, Yelena Larkin, and Roni Michaely (2019) also report that, over the last two
decades, more than 75% of U.S. industries have seen an increase in concentration levels, with an average increase in concentration of 90% (See
also Gutierrez and Philippon 2017; Autor et al. 2017; Gao, Ritter, and Zhu 2013; Doidge, Karolyi, and Stulz 2017; Kwoka 2017). Thomas Philippon
(2019) supports these findings, arguing that laxer scrutiny and “excessive tolerance”11 of mergers in the United States has contributed to a rise
in the pace of merger activity and further consolidation of firms (i.e., the Chicago School of Antitrust).
What are the implications of this increase in industrial concentration for corporations and for labor? Clearly,
corporations have done well. Several studies have documented higher returns to capital from higher
rates of market power. German Gutierrez and Thomas Philippon (2017) find that the profit share has
increased across all industries since the 1970s, consistent with a rise in concentration and market power. The
CEA brief (2016) identified higher economic rents especially for firms at the ninetieth percentile. Grullon, Larkin, and Michaely (2019, 698–699)
identify “higher returns on assets … driven primarily by a given firm’s ability to extract higher profit margins,” especially for firms in industries
with increasing concentration levels.12
Although corporations have enjoyed these higher returns to capital, labor has lost ground over the years: as Joseph
Stiglitz (2012) argues, the increase in economic rents has shifted income from labor and toward capital,
increasing economic inequality (See also Furman and Orszag 2018). David Autor et al. (2017) also conclude that
industries with the largest increases in concentration have seen the largest declines in the labor share.
Kaushik Basu and Joseph Stiglitz (2016) find that the increase in economic rents is in turn causing an increase
in wealth inequality.
Components of Broadly Defined Profit Rate and Capital Accumulation in Manufacturing
We now turn to our own analysis of the connections between industrial concentration, the profit rate, the labor share, and capital
accumulation in U.S. manufacturing. We utilize the NBER-CES Manufacturing Industry Database,13 which provides industry-specific variables
over the 1958–2011 period, a period that includes both Harvard and Chicago School’s treatment of antitrust. The data include 473 6-digit NAICS
industries, which, for purposes of this analysis, were converted into 3-digit industries to look at the general trends in the manufacturing
subsectors over this period. Since NBER-CES does not provide data on net fixed assets, these sub-sectors were made compatible with the
classification of U.S. manufacturing by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) where we can obtain the data on net fixed assets.14
Concentration ratios for sub-sectors of U.S. manufacturing were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The following equation was then used to develop an accounting framework for the broadly defined profit rate:
R in equation (1) is the profit, defined broadly in this study as non-payroll income. NBER-CES provides payroll data, but not benefits. Thus,
where vship is the value of shipment (total sales), matcost is material cost (intermediate goods), and pay is payroll. K in equation (1) is the
capital stock (net fixed assets) and Y in equation (1) is the value added defined as
In equation (1), R/Y is the non-payroll income share and Y/K is the output-capital ratio.
Figure 1 below shows the broadly defined profit rate, r, for total manufacturing, including the durable goods and nondurable goods sectors.
After peaking in the mid-1960s, the broadly defined profit rate in manufacturing experienced a sharp decline over the 1965–1982 period. The
profit rate recovered somewhat until 1997 before it trended downwards again. The profit rate reached its lowest levels during the great
recession of 2007–09.
Figure 1. Broadly Defined Profit Rate in Manufacturing, 1958–2011 (index, 1958 = 1)
Figure 2 shows the components of the broadly defined profit rate, namely the share of non-payroll income, R/Y, and output-capital ratio, Y/K,
over the 1958–2011 period. The share of non-payroll income in manufacturing has steadily increased over the period of 1958–2011. In other
words, the share of payroll in value added has steadily declined over the same period. The output-capital ratio, Y/K, on the other hand, has
declined somewhat sharply over the 1965–1982 period. It stabilized during the 1982–1997 period before trending downwards again. Thus, the
decline in the broadly defined profit rate over the 1965–1982 period was mainly driven by the sharp decline in the output-capital ratio while
the subsequent recovery was caused by the continuing increase in the share of non-payroll income and the stable output-capital ratio.
Figure 2. Share of Non-payroll Income (R/Y) and Output-Capital Ratio (Y/K) in Manufacturing, 1958–2011 (Index, 1958 = 1)
Figure 3 shows the broadly defined profit rate and capital accumulation in manufacturing over the 1958–2011 period. Capital accumulation is
defined as the rate of growth of net stock of private fixed assets in manufacturing. While the broadly defined profit rate and capital
accumulation move mostly in tandem with each other until the early 1980s, they began to diverge thereafter. With the exception of the second
half of the 1990s, capital accumulation was weak during the 1982–2011 period while the profit rate showed somewhat significant recovery until
the onset of the great recession of 2007–2009.
Figure 3. Broadly Defined Profit Rate and Capital Accumulation in Manufacturing

Figure 4 shows the share of the investment in broadly defined profit (non-payroll income) in U.S. manufacturing. While the share of investment
in the broadly defined profit increased over time during the 1958–1980 period, it declined dramatically in the post-1980 period and never
recovered to pre-1980 levels.
Figure 4. Share of Investment in Broadly Defined Profit, 1958–2011 (Index, 1958 = 1)
In short, the figures above show that the share of the payroll in the value added of manufacturing has continuously declined and the capital
accumulation somewhat substantially slowed down in the post-1980 period. This occurs even though the profit rate in manufacturing
recovered somewhat significantly after the early 1980s before declining during and after the great recession.15 Below we will briefly examine
how these trends were affected by the concentration levels in the subsectors of U.S. manufacturing.
Concentration and Profitability in Manufacturing
We utilized Concentration-4 Ratios to rank 3-digit manufacturing industries by their degree of concentration. The CR-416 is a measure of the
market shares of the largest four firms in an industry. The U.S. Census Bureau provides concentration ratios for 1997, 2002, and 2007; hence
the profitability and related measures for each sector are ranked and recorded across three different periods: 1997–2001, 2002–2006, and
2007–2011.
Figures 5, 6, and 7 display the trends in the components of the broadly defined profit rate of the manufacturing sub-sectors, ranked by the CR-4
ratios, for the periods of 1997–2001, 2002–2006 and 2007–2011, respectively. These figures show that the most concentrated sectors exhibit a
higher share of non-payroll income and a lower output-capital ratio.
Figure 5. Components of the Broadly Defined Profit Rate, Sectors Ranked by CR-4, 1997–2011
Sectors ranked by Concentration-4.

Figure 8 shows capital accumulation for sectors ranked by CR-4 ratios for the periods of 1997–2001, 2002–2006 and 2007–2011. The trends are
relatively clear for the first two periods, 1997–2001 and 2002–2006; the least concentrated sectors tend to have a higher level of capital
accumulation than do the highly concentrated sectors. The period of 2007–2011, however, does not show the same trends of the previous two
periods regarding the concentration and capital accumulation.
Figure 8. Capital Accumulation
Sectors ranked by Concentration-4 (First, second, and third rows on the horizontal axis correspond to 1997–2001, 2002–2006 and 2007–2011,
respectively).
Conclusion
Our findings add to a growing body of evidence that rising levels of corporate concentration in the United
States and lax antitrust scrutiny have contributed, at least partially, to declining labor shares and the slower
capital accumulation in the U.S. manufacturing sector. We see that the mostly unchecked growth of corporate
power, as well as the declining bargaining power of labor, are factors fueling income growth at the top
and harming everyone else.
The economic impact of these phenomena is becoming a topic of concern for both heterodox and a
subset of mainstream economists alike, and increasingly, those who care about democracy. To quote Justice Louis
Brandeis, an influential thinker during the time of activist antitrust, “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the
hands of a few, but we can’t have both” (Brandeis, quoted in Leonhardt 2018, A23).
This will collapse the LIO---extinction.
Yuval Noah Harari 20, Professor, Department of History, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, “How to
Survive the 21st Century: Three Existential Threats to Humanity,” Journal of Data Protection & Privacy,
vol. 3, no. 4, 03/11/2020, pp. 463–468
As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, humanity faces so many issues and questions, that it is really hard to know what to focus on.
So I would like to use the next 20 minutes to help us focus on all the different issues we face. Three problems pose existential
challenges to our species.
These three existential challenges are nuclear war, ecological collapse and technological disruption. We should focus on them.
Now nuclear war and ecological collapse are already familiar threats, so let me spend some time explaining the less-familiar threat posed by
technological disruption.
In Davos, we hear so much about the enormous promises of technology — and these promises are certainly real. But technology might also
disrupt human society and the very meaning of human life in numerous ways, ranging from the creation of a global useless class to the rise of
data colonialism and of digital dictatorships.
SOCIO-ECONOMIC UPHEAVAL
Automation will soon eliminate millions upon millions of jobs, and while new jobs will certainly be created, it is unclear whether people will be
able to learn the necessary new skills fast enough. Suppose you are a 50-year-old truck driver, and you just lost your job to a self-driving vehicle.
Now there are new jobs in designing software or in teaching yoga to engineers — but how does a 50-year-old truck driver reinvent himself or
herself as a software engineer or as a yoga teacher? And people will have to do it not just once but again and again throughout their lives,
because the automation revolution will not be a single watershed event following which the job market will settle down into a new equilibrium.
Rather, it will be a cascade of ever bigger disruptions, because artificial intelligence (AI) is nowhere near its full potential.
Old jobs will disappear, new jobs will emerge, but then the new jobs will rapidly change and vanish. Whereas in the past humans had to
struggle against exploitation, in the 21st century, the really big struggle will be against irrelevance. And it is much worse to be irrelevant than
exploited.
Those who fail in the struggle against irrelevance would constitute a

new ‘useless class’ — people who are useless not from the
viewpoint of their friends and family, but useless from the viewpoint of the economic and political system. And this
useless class will be separated by an ever-growing gap from the ever more powerful elite.
THE AI REVOLUTION CREATING UNPRECEDENTED INEQUALITY BETWEEN CLASSES AND COUNTRIES
In the 19th century, a few countries like Britain and Japan industrialised first, and they went on to conquer and exploit most of the world. If we
are not careful, the same thing will happen in the 21st century with AI.
We are already in the midst of an AI arms race, with China and the US leading the race, and most countries being left far, far
behind. Unless we take action to distribute the benefit and power of AI between all humans, AI will likely create immense wealth in a few high-
tech hubs, while other countries will either go bankrupt or become exploited data colonies.
Now we are not talking here about a science fiction scenario of robots rebelling against humans. We are
talking about far more primitive AI, which is nevertheless enough to disrupt the global balance.
Just think what will happen to developing economies once it is cheaper to produce textiles or cars in California than in Mexico? And what will
happen to politics in your country in 20 years, when somebody in San Francisco or Beijing knows the entire medical and personal history of
every politician, every judge and every journalist in your country, including all their sexual escapades, all their mental weaknesses and all their
corrupt dealings? Will it still be an independent country or will it become a data colony?
When you have enough data, you do not need to send soldiers in order to control a country.
THE RISE OF DIGITAL DICTATORSHIPS AND GLOBAL MONITORING
This danger can be stated in the form of a simple equation, which I think might be the defining equation of life in the 21st century:
B ×C×D =AHH!
Which means? Biological knowledge multiplied by computing power multiplied by data equals the ability to hack humans, ahh!
If you know enough biology and have enough computing power and data, you can hack my body and my brain and my life, and you can
understand me better than I understand myself. You can know my personality type, my political views, my sexual preferences, my mental
weaknesses, my deepest fears and hopes. You know more about me than I know about myself. And you can do that not just to me, but to
everyone.
A system that understands us better than we understand ourselves can predict our feelings and decisions, can manipulate our feelings and
decisions and can ultimately make decisions for us.
Now in the past, many governments and tyrants wanted to do it, but nobody understood biology well enough, and nobody had enough
computing power and data to hack millions of people. Neither the Gestapo nor the KGB could do it. But soon at least some corporations and
governments will be able to systematically hack all the people. We humans should get used to the idea that we are no longer mysterious souls
— we are now hackable animals. That is what we are.
The power to hack humans can be used for good purposes — like providing much better healthcare. But if this power falls into the hands of a
21st-century Stalin, the result will be the worst totalitarian regime in human history. And we already have a number of applicants for the job of
21stcentury Stalin.
Just imagine North Korea in 20 years, when everybody has to wear a biometric bracelet that constantly monitors your blood pressure, your
heart rate, your brain activity 24 hours a day. You listen to a speech on the radio by the great leader, and they know what you actually feel. You
can clap your hands and smile, but if you are angry, they know, you will be in the gulag tomorrow.
And if we allow the emergence of such total surveillance regimes, do not think that the rich and powerful in places like Davos will be safe, just
ask Jeff Bezos. In Stalin’s USSR, the state monitored members of the communist elite more than anyone else. The same will be true of future
total surveillance regimes. The higher you are in the hierarchy — the more closely you will be watched.
Do you want your chief executive officer or your president to know what you really think about them?
So it is in the interest of all humans, including the elites, to prevent the rise of such digital dictatorships. And in the meantime, if you get a
suspicious WhatsApp message, from some Prince, do not open it.
Now if we indeed prevent the establishment of digital dictatorships, the ability to hack humans might still undermine the very meaning of
human freedom. Because as humans will rely on AI to make more and more decisions for us, authority will shift from humans to algorithms and
this is already happening.
Already today billions of people trust the Facebook algorithm to tell us what is new, the Google algorithm tells us what is true, Netflix tells us
what to watch, and the Amazon and Alibaba algorithms tell us what to buy.
In the not-so-distant future, similar algorithms might tell us where to work and who to marry, and also decide whether to hire us for a job,
whether to give us a loan, and whether the central bank should raise the interest rate.
And if you ask why you were not given a loan, and why you the bank did not raise the interest rate, the answer will always be the same —
because the computer says no. And as the limited human brain lacks sufficient biological knowledge, computing power and data — humans will
simply not be able to understand the computer’s decisions.
So even in supposedly free countries, humans are likely to lose control over our own lives and also lose the ability to understand public policy.
Already now, how many humans understand the financial system? Maybe 1 per cent, to be very generous. In a couple of decades, the number
of humans capable of understanding the financial system will be exactly zero.
Now we humans are used to thinking about life as a drama of decision-making. What will be the meaning of human life when most decisions
are taken by algorithms? We do not even have philosophical models to understand such an existence.
The usual bargain between philosophers and politicians is that philosophers have a lot of fanciful ideas, and politicians basically explain that
they lack the means to implement these ideas. Now we are in an opposite situation. We are facing philosophical bankruptcy.
The twin revolutions of infotech and biotech are now giving politicians the means to create heaven or hell, but
the philosophers are having trouble conceptualising what the new heaven and the new hell will look like. And that is a very dangerous
situation.
If we fail to conceptualise the new heaven quickly enough, we might be easily misled by naïve utopias.
And if we fail to conceptualise the new hell quickly enough, we might find ourselves entrapped there
with no way out.
Technological disruption of not just our economy, politics and philosophy but also our biology
In the coming decades, AI and biotechnology will give us godlike abilities to reengineer life, and even to create completely new life forms. After
four billion years of organic life shaped by natural selection, we are about to enter a new era of inorganic life shaped by intelligent design.
Our intelligent design is going to be the new driving force of the evolution of life and in using our new divine powers of creation, we might make
mistakes on a cosmic scale. In particular, governments, corporations and armies are likely to use technology to enhance human skills that they
need — like intelligence and discipline — while neglecting other humans skills – like compassion, artistic sensitivity and spirituality.
The result might be a race of humans who are very intelligent and very disciplined but lack compassion, artistic sensitivity and spiritual depth.
Of course, this is not a prophecy. These are just possibilities. Technology is never deterministic.
In the 20th century, people used the same industrial technology to build very different kinds of
societies: fascist dictatorships, communist regimes, liberal democracies. The same thing will happen in
the 21st century.
AI and biotech will certainly transform the world, but we can use them to create very different kinds of
societies. And if you are afraid of some of the possibilities I have mentioned, you can still do something about it.
But to do something effective, we need global cooperation.
GLOBAL PROBLEMS THAT DEMAND GLOBAL SOLUTIONS
Whenever a leader says something like ‘My country first!’ we should remind that leader that no nation can prevent nuclear war or stop
ecological collapse by itself, and no nation can regulate AI and bioengineering by itself.
Almost every country will say, ‘Hey, we don’t want to develop killer robots or to genetically engineer human babies. We are the good guys. But
we can’t trust our rivals not to do it. So we must do it first’.
If we allow such an arms race to develop in fields like AI and bioengineering, it does not really matter who wins the arms race — the loser will
be humanity.
Unfortunately, just when global cooperation is more needed than ever before, some of the most powerful leaders and countries in the world
are now deliberately undermining global cooperation. Leaders like the US president tell us that there is an inherent contradiction between
nationalism and globalism, and that we should choose nationalism and reject globalism.
But this is a dangerous mistake. There is no contradiction between nationalism and globalism. Because nationalism is not about hating
foreigners. Nationalism is about loving your compatriots. And in the 21st century, in order to protect the safety and the future of your
compatriots, you must cooperate with foreigners.
So in the 21st century, good nationalists must be also globalists. Now globalism does not mean establishing a global government, abandoning
all national traditions or opening the border to unlimited immigration. Rather, globalism means a commitment to some global
rules.
Rules that do not deny the uniqueness of each nation, but only regulate the relations between nations.
THE WORLD CUP: AN EFFECTIVE MODEL FOR GLOBAL COOPERATION
The World Cup is a competition between nations, and people often show fierce loyalty to their national team. But at the same time, the World
Cup is also an amazing display of global harmony. France cannot play football against Croatia unless the French and the Croatians agree on the
same rules for the game. And that is globalism in action.
If you like the World Cup — you are already a globalist.
Now hopefully, nations could agree on global rules not just for football, but also for
how to prevent ecological collapse, how to
regulate dangerous technologies and how to reduce global inequality. How to make sure, for example, that AI benefits
Mexican textile workers and not only American software engineers. Now of course, this is going to be much more difficult than football — but
not impossible. Because the impossible, well we have already accomplished the impossible.
We have already escaped the violent jungle in which we humans have lived throughout history. For thousands of
years, humans lived under the law of the jungle in a condition of omnipresent war. The law of the jungle
said that for every two nearby countries, there is a plausible scenario that they will go to war against
each other next year. Under this law, peace meant only ‘the temporary absence of war’.
When there was ‘peace’ between — say — Athens and Sparta, or France and Germany, it meant that now
they are not at war, but next year they might be. And for thousands of years, people had assumed that it
was impossible to escape this law.
But in the last few decades, humanity has managed to do the impossible, to break the law and to
escape the jungle. We have built the rule-based liberal global order that, despite many imperfections,
has nevertheless created the most prosperous and most peaceful era in human history.
Peace has changed
‘Peace’ no longer means just the temporary absence of war. Peace now means the implausibility of
war.
There are many countries that you simply cannot imagine going to war against each other next year — like
France and Germany. There are still wars in some parts of the world . I come from the Middle East, so believe me, I
know this perfectly well. But it should not blind us to the overall global picture.
We are now living in a world in which war kills fewer people than suicide, and gunpowder is far less
dangerous to your life than sugar. Most countries — with some notable exceptions like Russia — do not even fantasise
about conquering and annexing their neighbours. Which is why most countries can afford to spend maybe
just about 2 per cent of their gross domestic product on defence, while spending far, far more on
education and healthcare. This is not a jungle.
Unfortunately, we have gotten so used to this wonderful situation that we take it for granted, and we
are therefore becoming extremely careless. Instead of doing everything we can to strengthen the
fragile global order, countries neglect it and even deliberately undermine it.
The global order is now like a house that everybody inhabits and nobody repairs. It can hold on for a
few more years, but if we continue like this, it will collapse — and we will find ourselves back in the
jungle of omnipresent war.
We have forgotten what it is like, but believe me as a historian — you do not want to be back there. It is far, far
worse than you imagine.
Yes, ourspecies has evolved in that jungle and lived and even prospered there for thousands of years, but
if we return there now, with the powerful new technologies of the 21st century, our species will probably
annihilate itself.
Of course, even if we disappear, it will not be the end of the world. Something will survive us. Perhaps the rats will eventually take over
and rebuild civilisation. Perhaps, then, the rats will learn from our mistakes.
Inequality-driven collapse escalates global hotspots, including reactor meltdowns. It’s
existential.
Mathew Maavak 21, Author at Atlas Institute for International Affairs, external researcher
(PLATBIDAFO) at the Kazimieras Simonavicius University in Vilnius, Lithuania, “Horizon 2030: Will
Emerging Risks Unravel Our Global Systems?,” Salus Journal, Vol. 9, No. 1, April 2021, pp 2-17
But what exactly is a global system? Our

planet itself is an autonomous and selfsustaining mega-system, marked by periodic cycles
and elemental vagaries. Human activities within however are not system isolates as our banking, utility, farming,
healthcare and retail sectors etc. are increasingly entwined. Risks accrued in one system may cascade into an
unforeseen crisis within and/or without (Choo, Smith & McCusker, 2007). Scholars call this phenomenon “emergence”; one where the
behaviour of intersecting systems is determined by complex and largely invisible interactions at the substratum (Goldstein, 1999; Holland,
1998).
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is a case in point. While experts remain divided over the source and
morphology of the virus, the contagion has ramified into a global health crisis and supply chain nightmare.
It is also tilting the geopolitical balance. China is the largest exporter of intermediate products, and had generated nearly 20% of
global imports in 2015 alone (Cousin, 2020). The pharmaceutical sector is particularly vulnerable. Nearly “85% of medicines in the U.S. strategic
national stockpile” sources components from China (Owens, 2020).
An initial run on respiratory masks has now been eclipsed by rowdy queues at supermarkets and the bankruptcy of small businesses. The entire
global population – save for major pockets such as Sweden, Belarus, Taiwan and Japan – have been subjected to cyclical lockdowns and
quarantines. Never before in history have humans faced such a systemic, borderless calamity.
COVID-19 representsa classic emergent crisis that necessitates real-time response and adaptivity in a real-
time world, particularly since the global Just-in-Time (JIT) production and delivery system serves as both
an enabler and vector for transboundary risks. From a systems thinking perspective, emerging risk management should
therefore address a whole spectrum of activity across the economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological (EEGST) taxonomy.
Every emerging threat can be slotted into this taxonomy – a reason why it is used by the World Economic Forum (WEF) for its annual global risk
exercises (Maavak, 2019a).
As traditional forces of globalization unravel, security professionals should take cognizance of emerging
threats through a systems thinking approach.
METHODOLOGY
An EEGST sectional breakdown was adopted to illustrate a sampling of extreme risks facing the world for the 2020-2030 decade. The
transcendental quality of emerging risks, as outlined on Figure 1, below, was primarily informed by the following pillars of systems thinking
(Rickards, 2020):
• Diminishing diversity (or increasing homogeneity) of actors in the global system (Boli & Thomas, 1997; Meyer, 2000; Young et al,
2006);
• Interconnections in the global system (Homer-Dixon et al, 2015; Lee & Preston, 2012);
• Interactions of actors, events and components in the global system (Buldyrev et al, 2010; Bashan et al, 2013; Homer-Dixon et al,
2015); and
• Adaptive qualities in particular systems (Bodin & Norberg, 2005; Scheffer et al, 2012)
Since scholastic material on this topic remains somewhat inchoate, this paper buttresses many of its contentions through secondary (i.e.
news/institutional) sources.
ECONOMY
According to Professor Stanislaw Drozdz (2018) of the Polish Academy of Sciences, “a
global financial crash of a previously
unprecedented scale is highly probable” by the mid-2020s. This will lead to a trickle-down meltdown,
impacting all areas of human activity.
The economist John Mauldin (2018) similarly warns that the “2020s might be the worst decade in US history” and may lead
to a Second Great Depression. Other forecasts are equally alarming. According to the International Institute of Finance, global debt may have
surpassed $255 trillion by 2020 (IIF, 2019). Yet another study revealed that global debts and liabilities amounted to a staggering $2.5 quadrillion
(Ausman, 2018). The reader should note that these figures were tabulated before the COVID-19 outbreak.
The IMF singles out widening income inequality as the trigger for the next Great Depression (Georgieva, 2020).
The wealthiest 1% now own more than twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion people (Coffey et al, 2020) and this
chasm is widening with each passing month. COVID-19 had, in fact, boosted global billionaire wealth to an
unprecedented $10.2 trillion by July 2020 (UBS-PWC, 2020). Global GDP, worth $88 trillion in 2019, may have contracted
by 5.2% in 2020 (World Bank, 2020).
As the Greek historian Plutarch warned in the 1st century AD: “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all
republics” (Mauldin, 2014). The stability of
a society, as Aristotle argued even earlier, depends on a robust middle
element or middle class. At the rate the global middle class is facing catastrophic debt and unemployment
levels, widespread social disaffection may morph into outright anarchy (Maavak, 2012; DCDC, 2007).
Economic stressors, in transcendent VUCA fashion, may

also induce radical geopolitical realignments. Bullions now
carry more weight than NATO’s security guarantees in Eastern Europe. After Poland repatriated 100 tons of gold
from the Bank of England in 2019, Slovakia, Serbia and Hungary quickly followed suit.
According to former Slovak Premier Robert Fico, this erosion in regional trust was based on historical precedents – in particular the 1938
Munich Agreement which ceded Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland to Nazi Germany. As Fico reiterated (Dudik & Tomek, 2019):
“You can hardly trust even the closest allies after the Munich Agreement… I guarantee that if something happens, we won’t see a
single gram of this (offshore-held) gold. Let’s do it (repatriation) as quickly as possible.” (Parenthesis added by author).
President Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia (a non-NATO nation) justified his central bank’s gold-repatriation program by hinting at economic
headwinds ahead: “We see in which direction the crisis in the world is moving” (Dudik & Tomek, 2019). Indeed, with two global Titanics – the
United States and China – set on a collision course with a quadrillions-denominated iceberg in the middle, and a viral outbreak on its tip, the
seismic ripples will be felt far, wide and for a considerable period.
A reality check is nonetheless needed here: Can additional bullions realistically circumvallate the economies of 80 million plus peoples in these
Eastern European nations, worth a collective $1.8 trillion by purchasing power parity? Gold however is a potent psychological symbol as it
represents national sovereignty and economic reassurance in a potentially hyperinflationary world. The portents are clear: The current global
economic system will be weakened by rising nationalism and autarkic demands. Much uncertainty remains ahead. Mauldin
(2018) proposes the introduction of Old Testament-style debt jubilees to facilitate gradual national recoveries. The World Economic Forum, on
the other hand, has long proposed a “Great Reset” by 2030; a socialist utopia where “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy” (WEF, 2016).
In the final analysis, COVID-19 is

not the root cause of the current global economic turmoil; it is merely an accelerant to a
burning house of cards that was left smouldering since the 2008 Great Recession (Maavak, 2020a). We also see how the four
main pillars of systems thinking (diversity, interconnectivity, interactivity and “adaptivity”) form the mise en scene in a VUCA decade.
ENVIRONMENTAL
What happens to the environment when our economies implode? Think of a debt-laden workforce at
sensitive nuclear and chemical plants, along with a concomitant surge in industrial accidents? Economic
stressors, workforce demoralization and rampant profiteering – rather than manmade climate change –
arguably pose the biggest threats to the environment. In a WEF report, Buehler et al (2017) made the following pre-COVID-19
observation:
The ILO estimates that the annual cost to the global economy from accidents and work-related diseases alone is a staggering $3
trillion. Moreover, a recent report suggests the world’s 3.2 billion workers are increasingly unwell, with the vast majority facing
significant economic insecurity: 77% work in part-time, temporary, “vulnerable” or unpaid jobs.
Shouldn’t this phenomenon be better categorized as a societal or economic risk rather than an environmental one? In line with the systems
thinking approach, however, global risks can no longer be boxed into a taxonomical silo. Frazzled workforces
may precipitate another Bhopal (1984), Chernobyl (1986), Deepwater Horizon (2010) or Flint water crisis (2014). These
disasters were notably not the result of manmade climate change. Neither was the Fukushima nuclear
disaster (2011) nor the Indian Ocean tsunami (2004). Indeed, the combustion of a long-overlooked cargo of
2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate had nearly levelled the city of Beirut, Lebanon, on Aug 4 2020. The explosion left 204
dead; 7,500 injured; US$15 billion in property damages; and an estimated 300,000 people homeless (Urbina, 2020). The environmental
costs have yet to be adequately tabulated .
Environmental disasters are more attributable to Black Swan events, systems breakdowns and corporate greed rather than to mundane human
activity.
Our JIT world aggravates the cascading potential of risks (Korowicz, 2012). Production and delivery delays,
caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, will eventually require industrial overcompensation. This will further
stress senior executives, workers, machines and a variety of computerized systems. The trickle-down effects will likely
include substandard products, contaminated food and a general lowering in health and safety standards
(Maavak, 2019a). Unpaid or demoralized sanitation workers may also resort to indiscriminate waste
dumping. Many cities across the United States (and elsewhere in the world) are no longer recycling wastes due to prohibitive costs in the
global corona-economy (Liacko, 2021).
Even in good times, strict protocols on waste disposals were routinely ignored. While Sweden championed the global climate change narrative,
its clothing flagship H&M was busy covering up toxic effluences disgorged by vendors along the Citarum River in Java, Indonesia. As a result,
countless children among 14 million Indonesians straddling the “world’s most polluted river” began to suffer from dermatitis, intestinal
problems, developmental disorders, renal failure, chronic bronchitis and cancer (DW, 2020). It is also in cauldrons like the Citarum River where
pathogens may mutate with emergent ramifications.
On an equally alarming note, depressed economic conditions have traditionally provided a waste disposal boon
for organized crime elements. Throughout 1980s, the Calabria-based ‘Ndrangheta mafia – in collusion with governments in Europe and
North America – began to dump radioactive wastes along the coast of Somalia. Reeling from pollution and revenue loss, Somali fisherman
eventually resorted to mass piracy (Knaup, 2008).
The coast of Somalia is now a maritime hotspot, and exemplifies an entwined form of economic-environmental-geopolitical-societal
emergence. In a VUCA world, indiscriminate waste dumping can unexpectedly morph into a Black Hawk Down incident. The laws of unintended
consequences are governed by actors, interconnections, interactions and adaptations in a system under study – as outlined in the methodology
section.
Environmentally-devastating industrial sabotages – whether by disgruntled workers, industrial competitors, ideological

maniacs or terrorist groups – cannot be discounted in a VUCA world. Immiserated societies, in stark defiance of climate change
diktats, may resort to dirty coal plants and wood stoves for survival. Interlinked ecosystems, particularly
water resources, may be hijacked by nationalist sentiments. The environmental fallouts of critical
infrastructure (CI) breakdowns loom like a Sword of Damocles over this decade.
GEOPOLITICAL
The primary catalyst behind WWII was the Great Depression. Since history often repeats itself, expect
familiar bogeymen to reappear in societies roiling with impoverishment and ideological clefts. Anti-Semitism – a
societal risk on its own – may reach alarming proportions in the West (Reuters, 2019), possibly forcing Israel to undertake reprisal operations
inside allied nations. If that happens, how will affected nations react? Will
security resources be reallocated to protect certain
minorities (or the Top 1%) while larger segments of society are exposed to restive forces? Balloon effects like these
present a classic VUCA problematic.
Contemporary geopolitical risksinclude a possible Iran-Israel war; US-China military confrontation over
Taiwan or the South China Sea; North Korean proliferation of nuclear and missile technologies; an India-
Pakistan nuclear war; an Iranian closure of the Straits of Hormuz; fundamentalist-driven implosion in the
Islamic world; or a nuclear confrontation between NATO and Russia. Fears that the Jan 3 2020 assassination of Iranian
Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani might lead to WWIII were grossly overblown. From a systems perspective, the killing of Soleimani did not
fundamentally change the actor-interconnection-interactionadaptivity equation in the Middle East. Soleimani was simply a cog who got
replaced.
Meltdowns cause extinction

Christopher Allen Slocum 15, VP @ AO&G, “A Theory for Human Extinction: Mass Coronal Ejection and
Hemispherical Nuclear Meltdown,” 07/21/15, The Hidden Costs of Alternative Energy Series,
http://azoilgas.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Theory-for-Human-Extinction-Slocum-20151003.pdf
With our intelligence we have littered the planet with massive spent nuclear fuel pools, emitting lethal radiation in over-crowded
conditions, with circulation requirements of electricity, water-supply, and neutron absorbent chemicals. The
failure of any of these conditions for any calculable or incalculable reason, will release all of a pool’s cesium into the
atmosphere, causing 188 square miles to be contaminated, 28,000 cancer deaths and $59 billion in damage. As of 2003, 49,000 tons of
SNF was stored at 131 sites with an additional 2,000-2,400 metric tons produced annually. The NRC has issued permits, and the nuclear industry
has amassed unfathomable waste on the premise that a deep geological storage facility would be available to remediate the waste. The current
chances for a deep geological storage facility look grim. The NAS has required geologic stability for 1,000,000 years. It is impossible to calculate
any certainty 1,000,000 years into the future. Humanity could not even predict the mechanical failures at Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, nor
could it predict the size of the tsunami that triggered three criticality events at Fukushima Daiichi. These irremediable crises span just
over 70 years of human history.
How can the continued production and maintenance of SNF in pools be anything but a precedent to an unprecedented
human cataclysm? The Department of Energy’s outreach website explains nuclear fission for power production, providing a timeline of
the industry. The timeline ends, as does most of the world’s reactor construction projects in the 1990s, with the removal of the FCMs from
Three Mile Island. One would think the timeline would press into the current decade, however the timeline terminates with the question, “How
can we minimize the risk? What do we do with the waste?” (The History of Nuclear Energy 12). Nearly fifteen years into the future, these
questions are no closer to an answer. The reactors at Fukushima Daiichi are still emitting radioisotopes into the atmosphere, and their condition
is unstable. TEPCO has estimated it could take forty years to recover all of the fuel material, and there are doubts as to whether the
decontamination effort can withstand that much time (Schneider 72). A detailed analysis of Chernobyl has demonstrated that nuclear
fall-
out, whether from thermonuclear explosions, spent fuel pool fires, or reactor core criticality events are deleterious to the food-
chain. Cesium and strontium are taken into the roots of plants and food crops, causing direct human and
animal contamination from ingestion, causing cancer, teratogenicity, mutagenesis and death.
Vegetation suffers mutagenesis, reproductive loss, and death. Radioactive fields and forest floors
decimate invertebrate and rodent variability and number necessary to supply nature’s food-chain and
life cycles. The flesh and bones of freshwater and oceanic biota contribute significantly to the total
radiation dose in the food-chain. Fresh water lakes, rivers and streams become radioactive. Potable
aquafers directly underlying SNFs and FCMs are penetrated by downward migration of radioisotopes . Humans
must eat to live. Humans must have water. No human can survive 5 Sv of exposure to ionizing radiation, many
cannot survive exposure to 1 Sv.
Realizing the irremediable devastation caused by one thermonuclear warhead, by one Chernobyl, by one Fukushima Daiichi, it remains to be
said that the earth can handle as many simultaneous loss of coolant failures as nature can create .
Humanity cannot. It is not good enough to lead by relegating probable human wide extinction phenomena to an appeal to lack of
evidence. Policy cannot indefinitely ignore responsibility by requiring further study. Nor can leadership idle into cataclysm by relying
on the largest known natural phenomena of the last 200 years. Permitting construction and continued operation of malefic machinery, based
on 200 years of cataclysmic experience is a protocol for calamity. Of coronal mass ejections, Hapgood warns, that we need to prepare for a
once-in-1000-year event, not just simulate infrastructure safeties by the measure of what we have seen in the past. The same is true for all
natural phenomena. The future of humanity is too precious to operate with such insouciance. The engineering is not good enough. It never will
be. Nature is too unpredictable, and nuclear power is too dangerous.
Inequality turns every other impact, including existential terror.

Luke Kemp 19, Researcher based at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) at the University
of Cambridge, “Are we on the road to civilization collapse?” 02/19/19, http://www.st-stanislaus-
gy.com/Academics/Topics/CollapseOfCivilization.pdf
Our deep past is marked by recurring failure. As part of my research at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the
University of Cambridge, I am attempting to find out why collapse occurs through a historical autopsy. What can the rise and fall of historic
civilisations tell us about our own? What are the forces that precipitate or delay a collapse? And do we see similar patterns today?
The first way to look at past civilisations is to compare their longevity. This can be difficult, because there is no strict definition of civilisation,
nor an overarching database of their births and deaths.
In the graphic below, I have compared the lifespan of various civilisations, which I define as a society with agriculture, multiple cities, military
dominance in its geographical region and a continuous political structure. Given this definition, all empires are civilisations, but not all
civilisations are empires. The data is drawn from two studies on the growth and decline of empires (for 3000-600BC and 600BC-600), and an
informal, crowdsourced survey of ancient civilisations (which I have amended).
Collapse can be defined as a rapid and enduring loss of population, identity and socioeconomic
complexity. Public services crumble and disorder ensues as government loses control of its monopoly on violence.
[[IMAGE OMITTED]]
Virtually all past civilisations have faced this fate. Some recovered or transformed, such as the Chinese and Egyptian. Other
collapses were permanent, as was the case of Easter Island. Sometimes the cities at the epicentre of collapse are revived, as was the case with
Rome. In other cases, such as the Mayan ruins, they are left abandoned as a mausoleum for future tourists.
What can this tell us about the future of global modern civilisation? Are the lessons of agrarian empires applicable to our post-
18th Century period of industrial capitalism?
I would argue that they are. Societies of the past and present are just complex systems composed of people and technology. The theory of
“normal accidents” suggests that complex technological systems regularly give way to failure. So collapse may be a normal phenomenon for
civilisations, regardless of their size and stage.
We may be more technologically advanced now. But this gives little ground to believe that we are immune to the threats that undid our
ancestors. Our newfound technological abilities even bring new, unprecedented challenges to the mix.
And while our scale may now be global, collapse

appears to happen to both sprawling empires and fledgling
kingdoms alike. There is no reason to believe that greater size is armour against societal dissolution. Our tightly-
coupled, globalised economic system is, if anything, more likely to make crisis spread.
[[IMAGE OMITTED]]
If the fate of previous civilisations can be a roadmap to our future, what does it say? One method is to examine
the trends that preceded historic collapses and see how they are unfolding today.
While there is no single accepted theory for why collapses happen, historians, anthropologists and others have proposed various explanations,
including:
CLIMATIC CHANGE: When climatic stability changes, the results can be disastrous, resulting in crop failure, starvation and desertification. The
collapse of the Anasazi, the Tiwanaku civilisation, the Akkadians, the Mayan, the Roman Empire, and many others have all coincided with
abrupt climatic changes, usually droughts.
ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION: Collapse can occur when societies overshoot the carrying capacity of their environment. This ecological
collapse theory, which has been the subject of bestselling books, points to excessive deforestation, water pollution, soil degradation and the
loss of biodiversity as precipitating causes.
INEQUALITY AND OLIGARCHY: Wealth and politicalinequality can be central drivers of social disintegration, as
can oligarchy and centralisation of power among leaders. This not only causes social distress, but handicaps
a society’s ability to respond to ecological, social and economic problems.
The field of cliodynamics models how factors such as equality and demography correlate with political violence. Statistical analysis of
previous societies suggests that this happens in cycles. As population increases, the supply of labour outstrips demand,
workers become cheap and society becomes top-heavy. This inequality undermines collective solidarity
and political turbulence follows.
COMPLEXITY: Collapse expert and historian Joseph Tainter has proposed that societies eventually collapse under the weight of their own
accumulated complexity and bureaucracy. Societies are problem-solving collectives that grow in complexity in order to overcome new issues.
However, the returns from complexity eventually reach a point of diminishing returns. After this point, collapse will eventually ensue.
Another measure of increasing complexity is called Energy Return on Investment (EROI). This refers to the ratio between the amount of energy
produced by a resource relative to the energy needed to obtain it. Like complexity, EROI appears to have a point of diminishing returns. In his
book The Upside of Down, the political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon observed that environmental degradation throughout the Roman Empire
led to falling EROI from their staple energy source: crops of wheat and alfalfa. The empire fell alongside their EROI. Tainter also blames it as a
chief culprit of collapse, including for the Mayan.
EXTERNAL SHOCKS: In other words, the “four horsemen”: war, natural disasters, famine and plagues. The Aztec Empire, for example, was
brought to an end by Spanish invaders. Most early agrarian states were fleeting due to deadly epidemics. The concentration of humans and
cattle in walled settlements with poor hygiene made disease outbreaks unavoidable and catastrophic. Sometimes disasters combined, as was
the case with the Spanish introducing salmonella to the Americas.
RANDOMNESS/BAD LUCK: Statistical analysis on empiressuggests that collapse is random and independent of age. Evolutionary biologist and
data scientist Indre Zliobaite and her colleagues have observed a similar pattern in the evolutionary record of species. A common explanation of
this apparent randomness is the “Red Queen Effect”: if species are constantly fighting for survival in a changing environment with numerous
competitors, extinction is a consistent possibility.
Despite the abundance of books and articles, we don’t have a conclusive explanation as to why civilisations collapse. What we do know is this:
the factors highlighted above can all contribute. Collapse is a tipping point phenomena, when compounding stressors overrun societal coping
capacity.
We can examine these indicators of danger to see if our chance of collapse is falling or rising. Here are four of those possible metrics, measured
over the past few decades:
[[IMAGE OMITTED]]
Temperature is a clear metric for climate change, GDP is a proxy for complexity and the ecological footprint is an indicator for environmental
degradation. Each of these has been trending steeply upwards.
Inequality is more difficult to calculate. The typical measurement of the Gini Index suggests that inequality has decreased slightly globally
(although it is increasing within countries). However, the Gini Index can be misleading as it only measures relative changes in income. In other
words, if two individuals earning $1 and $100,000 both doubled their income, the Gini would show no change. But the gap between the two
would have jumped from $99,999 to $198,000.
Because of this, I have also depicted the income share of the global top 1%. The
1% have increased in their share of global
income from approximately 16% in 1980 to over 20% today. Importantly, wealth inequality is even
worse. The share of global wealth from the 1% has swelled from 25-30% in the 1980s to approximately
40% in 2016. The reality is likely to be starker as these numbers do not capture wealth and income
siphoned into overseas tax havens.
Studies suggest that the EROI for fossil fuels has been steadily decreasing over time as the easiest to reach and richest reserves are depleted.
Unfortunately, most renewable replacements, such as solar, have a markedly lower EROI, largely due to their energy density and the rare earth
metals and manufacturing required to produce them.
This has led much of the literature to discuss the possibility of an “energy cliff” as EROI declines to a point where current societal levels of
affluence can no longer be maintained. The energy cliff need not be terminal if renewable technologies continue to improve and energy
efficiency measures are speedily implemented.
Measures of resilience
The somewhat reassuring news is that collapse metrics are not the entire picture. Societal resilience may be able to delay or prevent collapse.
For example, globally “economic diversity” – a measurement of the diversity and sophistication of country exports – is greater today than it was
in the 1960s and 1970s, as measured by the Economic Complexity Index (ECI). Nations are, on average, less reliant on single types of exports
than they once were. For example, a nation that had diversified beyond only exporting agricultural products would be more likely to weather
ecological degradation or the loss of trading partners. The ECI also measures the knowledge-intensity of exports. More skilled populations may
have a greater capacity to respond to crises as they arise.
Similarly, innovation – as measured by per capita patent applications– is also rising. In theory, a civilisation might be less vulnerable to collapse
if new technologies can mitigate against pressures such as climate change.
It’s also possible that “collapse” can happen without violent catastrophe. As Rachel Nuwer wrote on BBC Future in 2017, “in some cases,
civilisations simply fade out of existence – becoming the stuff of history not with a bang but a whimper”.
Still, when we look at all these collapse and resilience indicators as a whole, the message is clear that we should not be
complacent. There are some reasons to be optimistic, thanks to our ability to innovate and diversify away from disaster. Yet the world is
worsening in areas that have contributed to the collapse of previous societies. The climate is changing, the gap between the rich and
poor is widening, the world is becoming increasingly complex, and our demands on the environment are outstripping planetary carrying
capacity.
The rungless ladder
That's not all. Worryingly, the world is now deeply interconnected and interdependent. In the past, collapse was confined to
regions – it was a temporary setback, and people often could easily return to agrarian or hunter-gatherer lifestyles. For many, it was even a
welcome reprieve from the oppression of early states. Moreover, the weapons available during social disorder were rudimentary: swords,
arrows and occasionally guns.
Today, societal collapse is a more treacherous prospect. The weapons available to a state, and sometimes
even groups, during a breakdown now range from biological agents to nuclear weapons. New instruments of
violence, such as lethal autonomous weapons, may be available in the near future. People are increasingly
specialised and disconnected from the production of food and basic goods. And a changing climate may irreparably
damage our ability to return to simple farming practices.
Think of civilisation as a poorly-built ladder. As you climb, each step that you used falls away. A fall from a height of just a few rungs is fine. Yet
the higher you climb, the larger the fall. Eventually, once you reach a sufficient height, any drop from the ladder is fatal.
With the proliferation of nuclear weapons, we may have already reached this point of civilisational
“terminal velocity”. Any collapse – any fall from the ladder – risks being permanent. Nuclear war in itself could result in
an existential risk: either the extinction of our species, or a permanent catapult back to the Stone Age.
While we are becoming more economically powerful and resilient, our technological capabilities also present unprecedented threats
that no civilisation has had to contend with. For example, the climatic changes we face are of a different nature to what undid the Maya or
Anazasi. They are global, human-driven, quicker, and more severe.
Every increment of social wealth reduces extinction risk through resilience.

Hanna Samir Kassab 17, Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northern Michigan University,
“Prioritization Theory and Defensive Foreign Policy,” Springer International Publishing, 2017, CrossRef,
doi:10.1007/978-3-319-48018-3, pp 222-227
Furthermore, this work recognizes the importance of self-determination and economic development. These are not inherently bad things. Self-
determination recognizes the right of a state as represented by its people to live out the destiny of their own choosing. Economic development,
even from this Western modernist perspective, recognizes the value of human life and seeks to protect it through the proper and efficient
allocation of resources. However, if peoples choose to withdraw into a closed community, it is their right to do so. Yet the problem remains:
states and peoples are now more interconnected than ever. And so instead of remaining insular, everyone in the world has an interest to
ensure the proper functioning of the international system and the tackling of the world’s problems such as global warming, the
diffusion of disease and other negative public outcomes. Such matters bind the autonomy and
sovereignty of peoples together in the universal need for survival.
Final Words
When we study International Relations from the point of view of distribution of capabilities, scholars
miss other aspects of the discipline. A state’s behavior is carried out to survive against the systemic
vulnerabilities described in this book. Power, driven by economic development, is the tool for neutralizing
these vulnerabilities, so as to protect individuals living inside the state.
Power can be considered a laundry list of resources (Waltz 2010) meant to achieve invulnerability from
sources of threat. Whether from competitor states or disease and cyber-attacks, the role of power is to
enhance the state’s survival ability against the odds: to decrease vulnerability. Since resources are necessary to
increase resilience to threats, they are the antidote to vulnerability, and the root of power to achieve
invulnerability is the economy: economic development is thus the cure for vulnerability. The stronger,
more advanced the economy, the more resilient it will be to exogenous shock in the ways described. Economic gains
can be transformed into power in military terms, but also provide the necessary infrastructure to deal
with health, cyber, environmental and other shocks and destabilization. Since power is tied to economic
matters, economic vulnerabilities can significantly impede power and a state’s ability to deal with threats. The financial
crisis in 2008 damaged the European Union and much of the Caribbean because of their dependence on the USA. The falling price of oil is
decreasing global aggregate demand as Russians do not have as much to spend. This has occurred during a period of Russian expansionism and
while Eastern Europe is concerned about Russia’s military might, it must recognize the power of the world economy in terms of punishing this
sort of action.
Waltz focused on the distribution of capabilities as a means toward security. I look at world politics as the struggle to correct vulnerabilities in
order to remain secure. Military power cannot solve such vulnerability. Enhancing invulnerability will come through economic development in a
modernist perspective but threats will never be truly neutralized until all states in the system are economically developed. The economy,
with all its sensitivity and vulnerability, is a source of instability for all actors.
Consolidation in agricultural markets undermines regenerative agriculture---only

overturning the consumer welfare standard works
Kristen Tam & Olivia Bielskis 21, Kristen Tam, Team Lead at the UCLA Institute of Environmental
Sustainability, Olivia Bielskis, Stimulating Antitrust Enforcement to Expand the Regenerative Agriculture
Movement, https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0m16g2r5
C. Consolidation Threatens the Growth of Regenerative Farming
I. Regenerative Farming is Reducing Emissions, Bolstering Biodiversity, and Increasing
Food Security, a Critical Practice to create a Climate Resilient Future
The United Nations IPCC report calls for a rapid greenhouse gas reduction to limit temperature rise to 1.5
degrees celsius by 2050.33 Given that agriculture and forestry accounted for 10.5 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in 2018,34 farming
practices can play a crucial role in meeting these goals. Farming the land in ways that build healthy
soil, maintain biodiversity, and sequester carbon dioxide are critical measures that will help America
cultivate a sustainable food system, protect the land for generations to come, and meet greenhouse gas emission reduction goals.
Currently, the practices that dominate the American agricultural landscape often till the soil, plant only one to two
crops at a time, and input large sums of fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides, and other chemicals to streamline production.
Industrialized agriculture values efficiency, maximizing yield, and decreasing labor input. In contrast,
regenerative agriculture practices maintain soil health for long term benefit by applying compost as
fertilizer, planting cover crops, implementing diverse crop rotation, rotating livestock grazing, limiting
fertilizer and pesticide use, and eliminating tillage practices.35 Although opponents highlight that
regenerative practices yield less products per acre and require more labor input, they neglect the
significance of their energy input being 30-60 percent less than traditional methods because they do not
use machines, fertilizer, and herbicides.36 This practice ultimately increases the long term productivity
and stability of food production because it doesn’t rely on the continuous purchasing and application of
chemicals into the soil. Instead, it builds soil health by increasing nutrient and water retention, both of which increases land productivity.37
II. Small Farms are More Likely to Implement Regenerative Fertilization Practices
One of the defining regenerative agriculture practices is applying compost and manure as fertilizer. There are three
different types of fertilization methods that the USDA measures every few years, manure, organic, and commercial that help replenish soil
nutrients. Manure is the application of animal bio excretions,38 organic fertilizer is the use of organic matter, compost, animal manures or
green manures and does not include any chemical fertilizers,39 and commercial fertilizer is the application of chemically derived fertilizers such
as nitrogen, phosphate and potash.40 For these figures, manure and organic fertilizers are categorized as “regenerative fertilizers” because
they represent methods that replenish soils with naturally derived as opposed to chemically manufactured nutrients.
Small farms, 10.0 to 49.9 acres, are more likely to implement regenerative fertilizer methods than medium
sized, 260 to 499 acres, and large sized, 1,000 to 1,999 acre farms. In 2017, 32.74 percent of small farms used regenerative fertilizer,
compared to 27.27 percent of medium and 21.63 percent of large farms.41 Small farms are also transitioning away from
commercial fertilizer to regenerative fertilizer methods at a faster rate than medium and large farms.
From 2012 to 2017, small farms had the greatest percent decrease in number of farms using commercial fertilizers, 6.50 percent, and the
largest percent increase for regenerative practices, 6.47 percent. Medium farms experienced a 2.28 percent decrease in the number of farms
implementing commercial fertilizers, while a 2.57 percent increase in regenerative fertilizers. Large farms experienced a 2.31 percent decrease
in the number of farming implementing commercial fertilizers, while a 2.32 percent increase in regenerative fertilizers.42 This demonstrates
that smaller farms are more willing and better suited to implement regenerative practices.
Industrial agriculture firms, on the other hand, highly prioritize efficiencies and maximizing profit, thus, are
less likely to invest the time and money into learning about and switching to regenerative fertilization
practices. While small farms are making the most rapid transition to regenerative fertilization practices
that would benefit the market and planet in the long run, the increased market and resource
dominance of the largest farms, which have the slowest rates of transition to regenerative fertilization
practices, is ultimately hindering the growth of regenerative agriculture in the United States.
D. Consolidation Negatively Affects Farmers
This disproportionate market power gained by a few agriculture conglomerates allows them to reduce
prices in order to drive out competition.43 While large farms lack the will to invest in more regenerative
farming techniques, small farms that do not employ regenerative practices are primarily hindered by their lack
of economic means to do so. As previously stated, individual farmers make less than 15 cents per dollar and, according
to a study conducted by the USDA in 2001, 71 percent of poultry growers live below the poverty line.44 Such subpar
circumstances are not conducive to having the freedom to invest time and money into switching
practices to plant cover crops, not till, and use animal fertilizer.
E. Consolidation Negatively Affects Consumers
In addition to harming farmers, agricultural

consolidation has also resulted in increased food prices for
consumers, largely disproving the claims of Bork’s “consumer welfare standard.” In 2014, economist John
Kwoka published a book Mergers, Merger Control, and Remedies: A Retrospective Analysis of U.S. Policy where he analyzed 200 mergers from
1976 to 2006 and found that post-merger prices on average increased by 4.3 percent.45 In addition, evidence
has shown that
market self-correction has not occurred as a result of antitrust underenforcement.46
II. Prong One: “Antitrust Injury” Should Include the Threat of Loss of Profits due to Possible Price Competition The negative effects of agriculture consolidation have transpired largely due to the lack of antitrust enforcement from the Courts and the DOJ and FTC. The Supreme Court’s
ruling on Cargill v. Monfort, which allowed two meatpacking corporations to merge even though the plaintiff, a competing firm, claimed the merge would cause a “threat of loss of profits.” This showcases how this perspective on antitrust laws has failed to err on the side of precaution
and subsequently allows mergers that decrease competition in the marketplace to arise. This section outlines the intended purpose of antitrust laws, provides an overview of the case, then argues why showing the threat of loss of profits due to possible price competition following a
merger does constitute antitrust injury. Further, this ruling has created an unreasonable threshold for private entities to bring potential mergers to court and has created precedent for later filings to be dismissed on the basis that they did not prove sufficient “antitrust injury.” A. Origins
of Antitrust Law The term “antitrust” came about in the late 1800s because many companies were transferring their stock to a board of “trustees” who controlled the output and prices for entire industries.47 With this in mind, antitrust laws were designed to ensure that a few
corporations do not hold substantial economic power that could “be exerted to oppress individuals and injure the public generally.”48 Not only do they intend to prevent monopolization of markets, but they aim to maintain competitive markets, increase consumer surplus, increase the
quantity and quality of the product consumed, reduce deadweight loss, and improve efficiency in resource allocation as well.49 Congress created three major Federal antitrust laws to maintain competition in the marketplace: The Sherman Antitrust Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act and the
Federal Trade Commission Act.50 The first of the antitrust laws, The Sherman Antitrust Act was enacted in 1890 with the purpose of protecting interstate and foreign trade by outlawing contracts, combinations, conspiracies, and anticompetitive conduct that unreasonably restrained
trade.51 The Act is not violated when one firm’s vigorous competition and lower prices take sales from its less efficient competitors; in this case, the Courts state that competition is working properly.52 While the Sherman Act imposes a more onerous burden of proving actual
unreasonable restraints, Congress created the Clayton Act to require proof only of potential anticompetitive effect.53 The Act intends to prevent practices that suppress competition and give large businesses undue advantages over small businesses, as well as to prohibit mergers and
acquisitions that are likely to lessen competition.54 There are three key elements that help uphold United States antitrust laws and affect the level of enforcement. The first is jurisprudential doctrines that the courts develop.55 Judicial decisions may limit or expand the reach of antitrust
laws by setting precedents that alter the government’s ability to challenge certain types of cases. The second is the prosecutorial discretion that enforcers, the DOJ, the FTC, and the state attorneys general, employ.56 Because these agencies determine what does and does not violate
antitrust laws, a change in the enforcement discretion or philosophy of enforcers may affect the intensity of regulation. The third is the fiscal resources provided to the enforcers.57 Judicial rules that increase or decrease the cost and barrier to entry to pursue cases can affect the number
of antitrust cases brought to trial. B. Jurisprudential Doctrines are Largely Influenced by Lenient Interpretations by the Courts Until the late 1970s, the courts strictly ruled against many mergers and in favor of protecting competition. However, this changed when Robert Bork published a
book in the 1980s arguing that the government must only focus on changes in consumer prices when assessing anticompetitive harm, a perspective known as the “consumer welfare standard.”58 His framework prioritized economic efficiency over small businesses, arguing that big
business should be allowed to consolidate because its efficiency benefited the economy.59 Concurring with Bork, the Chicago School principles claim that underenforcement of antitrust laws was better than overenforcement because market self-correction will provide sufficient
safeguards to competition.60 Because of these new priorities, the Supreme Court, FTC, and DOJ adopted this philosophy in 1979 ushering in what is known as the Chicago Era.61 They prioritized the efficiencies and lower prices that larger firms created, thus rolling back their antitrust
enforcement on larger firms to create more consolidated industries.62 Although consolidated industries may positively affect consumers by decreasing prices, the Court neglected to take into account the negative effect that consolidation in agricultural purchasing and distribution had on
suppliers such as farmers. When there are less buyers, distributors, or packers who compete for the supplier’s good, the buyers are able to control and drive down the price they pay to the suppliers; they create what is known as monopsony power. C. Cargill v. Monfort Cargill v. Montfort
exemplifies a decision invoking a diluted enforcement of the Clayton Act that leads to the creation of monopsony power. In this case, the Supreme Court overruled the Circuit and District Court rulings and decided that the plaintiff, Monfort, did not establish sufficient antitrust injury under
Section 16 of the Clayton Act by claiming a threat of loss of profits to sue Excel. Monfort, the fifth largest beef packing corporation in the United States, was contesting the merging of Excel and Spencer, the second and third largest beef packing corporations in the United States. Excel is a
wholly owned subsidiary of Cargill, Inc., which owns more than 150 subsidiaries in over 35 countries.63 The merger would still leave Excel as the second largest packer, but its market share would almost equal the largest packer, IBP, Inc.64 The case was first brought to the Tenth Circuit
Court, where they agreed that the plaintiff proved antitrust standing and was able to seek injunction under Section 16 of the Clayton Act, which allows for a party to sue for injunctive relief due to “threatened loss or damage by a violation of the antitrust laws.”65 This conclusion was
reached because Montfort’s viability in the market would be injured by (1) a threat of loss of profits from the possibility that Excel would lower its prices to a level at or only slightly above its costs, and (2) a threat of being driven out of business by the possibility that Excel would lower its
prices to a level below its costs, which would violate Section 7 of the Clayton Act.66 Section 7 intends to prohibit actions that substantially lessen competition or tend to create monopolies.67 These injuries would be met on the premise that Excel would injure Monfort by enacting a
“price-cost squeeze.” A price-cost squeeze would involve Excel increasing the bidding price it would pay for cattle while lowering the price it sells the end product, boxed beef, to a level at or only slightly above its production costs.68 In effect, this would require Monfort to also lower its
prices in order to remain competitive, causing them to suffer profit losses.69 Excel’s large financial resources endowed by its owner, Cargill, would allow it to accept far lower profit margins than firms like Monfort, which would eliminate competitors in the short run and reduce
competition in the long run.7071 This inevitability violates the Clayton Act by creating a “threatened loss or damage”72 by a pricecost squeeze, which would “substantially… lessen competition”73 and create a dynamic in which Excel can control the market to maximize their own
benefit.74 The District Court agreed that Monfort’s allegations and proof of anticompetitive effect were sufficient given that Excel, being the second largest producer, could create an acquisition that realistically threatens Monfort’s position as a strong competitor in the marketplace.75
The Court of Appeals also affirmed this ruling and held that the respondent’s allegation of a “pricecost squeeze” was not just harm from competition, but constituted a claim of injury as a form of predatory pricing because Excel would drive other companies out of the market.76 D. The
Supreme Court’s Ruling on Cargill v. Monfort Undermines the Clayton Act In response to the District and Circuit Court rulings, the Supreme Court’s first argument was that the showing of loss or damage merely due to increased competition does not constitute antitrust injury to seek relief
under Section 16.77 The Supreme Court looked back to its rulings on Brunswick orp. V. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., where they held that “antitrust laws do not require the courts to protect small businesses from the loss of profits due to continued competition, but only against the loss of
profits from practices forbidden by the antitrust laws.”78 Here, the Court found that the competition that Monfort alleged, competition for increased market share, was simply vigorous competition, and not actively forbidden by antitrust laws.79 The Court suggests that if antitrust laws
protected competitors from the loss of profits due to this price competition, any decision by a firm to cut prices in order to increase market share would be rendered illegal.80 However, showing loss or damage due to increased competition does constitute antitrust injury. Antitrust injury
results from predatory pricing, an anticompetitive practice forbidden by antitrust laws where a corporation intentionally lowers prices below normal competitive prices in order to monopolize part of the market.81 Monfort demonstrated that this injury is at play because they proved high
likelihood that Excel would engage in a price-cost squeeze. A price cost squeeze may be viewed as “simply vigorous competition” in the short run. However, if the practice continues, it will greatly reduce competition in the long run. Furthermore, antitrust laws focus on protecting
competition in the long run rather than treating these matters as mere short term price wars. In this case, the Court focused on the postmerger conduct and opted to deny relief unless the plaintiff could prove a violation of the Sherman Act. Instead, the Court should focus its attention on
the merger itself and grant relief if there is a significant probability that the merger will adversely affect competition in the market, focusing on the probable threat of harm rather than actual harm.82 This aligns with the purpose of Section 7 in the Clayton Act to prevent mergers that
“may substantially lessen competition, or tend to create a monopoly” without requiring initial proof of ongoing, established harm to the plaintiff.83 Section 16 of the Clayton Act is not being properly enforced to protect competition if it does not grant plaintiffs antitrust injury on the basis
that there is a threat of loss of profits due to possible price competition following a merger. The Supreme Court’s second argument is that the respondent neither raised nor proved any claim of predatory pricing before the District Court. This is because Monfort did not allege that Excel’s
engaging in a price-cost squeeze was included in predatory activities.84 Although Monfort may only have four passing references that claim that Excel would be able to and would probably engage in predatory pricing, it should not need to claim this, rather, the evidence of a price-cost
squeeze likely occurring is enough to satisfy antitrust injury. The Court's ruling on Cargill v. Monfort did not, however, set a per se rule, which would have unequivocally “denied competitors standing to challenge acquisitions on the basis of predatory pricing theories.”85 Therefore,
competitors can still challenge acquisitions on the basis of predatory pricing. However, because the Court ruled that showing loss of damage merely due to increased competition, or the threat of loss of profits due to possible price competition following a merger does not constitute
antitrust injury to give injunctive relief under Section 16,86 if following competitors try to bring up this reason for antitrust injury, they will most likely be denied standing as the Court will refer back to this case. This language has been inscribed into this section’s jurisprudence doctrines
and has not been overturned or amended since, as more recently cited in the definition of antitrust standing in Glen Holly Entm’t, Inc. v. Tektronix Inc case in 2003.87 The subsequent adverse impacts of consolidation on the market demonstrate that showing loss of damage due merely to
increased competition, or the threat of loss of profits due to possible price competition following a merger does constitute antitrust injury and should be struck down. III. Prong Two: The DOJ and FTC have Significantly Decreased the Number of Agriculture and Meatpacking Merger
Acquisitions that they Block A. Power in the Hands of the Antitrust Division and Federal Trade Commission to determine Harmful Merges The second institutional aspect affecting antitrust enforcement is observed in federal agencies. The DOJ and FTC are the federal agencies that evaluate
if corporate merges valued at more than $94 million can occur.8889 Since the 1980s, regulation by the FTC and DOJ has significantly decreased. Every year the FTC and DOJ review over a thousand merger filings, and it was found that between 2000 and 2005, 95 percent of merger filings
presented no competitive issues.90 For mergers that “may… substantially… lessen competition, or tend to create a monopoly,”91 the FTC conducts more in-depth investigations using their Merger Best Practices guidelines.92 Oftentimes, competitive issues with these mergers are solved
by consent agreement with the parties. In the few cases where the agency and parties cannot agree on a way to fix the competitive problems, the agency may bring the merger on administrative trial to federal court.93 These agencies base their determination on if a merge is likely to
create or increase market power.94 Market power is the ability of a seller or a group of sellers to profitably maintain prices above competitive levels for a significant period of time or the ability of a buyer or coordinating group of buyers to depress prices below competitive levels.95 When
a merger is brought before them, such as the acquisition of Cargill by Continental, the Division conducts extensive research. In this case, they worked with over 20 attorneys, economists and paralegals who reviewed over 400 documents and consulted with officials from the USDA, FTC
and state attorneys general offices. They interviewed over 100 farmers, farm organization officials, agricultural economists, grain company executives, and other individuals. In conducting their analysis, the Division determines the size and shape of the product and geographic markets,
how recent buying and selling patterns would be affected by the merge, analyzes the size of the firms’ market shares, and looks at the pre- and post-merger levels of concentration in the market.9697 From this, the Division decides if the effect of the merger may substantially lessen
competition in the relevant market, which determines whether or not to allow the merger to exist.98 In Philadelphia National Bank, the Supreme Court set forth an additional test that said if mergers control an undue percentage share of the relevant market and which results in a
significant increase in the concentration of firms in the market inherently likely to lessen competition, then they violate Section 7 of the Clayton Act.99 After the Division follows these steps, they can prevent the merger from existing or allow the merger to proceed if they follow
restructuring recommendations. For Cargill, they concluded that the merger would prevent competition and options for farmers to sell their products to. Thus, the Division suggested multiple divestitures in Cargill and Continental facilities throughout the Midwest, West and Texas Gulf.
The Division did this because they wanted to ensure that farmers in the affected markets would have alternative buyers to sell their grain and soybeans to.100 This case exemplifies that the DOJ and FTC have the capacity to determine how much evidence is needed to prove injury, what
constitutes control of an “undue percentage share of the relevant market,” and what “a significant increase in the concentration of firms in the market” is.101 Although the investigation in Cargill and Continental resulted in an adequate enforcement of antitrust guidelines, the majority of
cases do not face comparable evaluation. B. Regulation by the DOJ has Significantly Decreased Decreased regulation by the DOJ and FTC is not adequately protecting competition. From 2010 to 2019, despite a 79.16 percent increase in the number of pre-merger submissions to the DOJ
and FTC, from 1,166 to 2,089, the percentage of mergers that these agencies conducted a second request for decreased by 0.5 percent and 0.3 percent respectively for the DOJ and FTC.102 Despite a clear increase in the number of merger requests, the DOJ and FTC have not
proportionally increased the usage of their enforcement mechanisms. Examining enforcement in 2013, there were 1,326 merger transactions reported, 217 of which raised questions for further inquiry based solely on information reported. From this, 47 second requests were issued from
the FTC and DOJ to collect data from the businesses. After receiving this information, the DOJ and FTC brought 38 merger enforcement actions which in the majority included settlement agreements with the parties involving asset divestiture to prevent post-merger harm. This resulted in
only 6 merger cases filed in court seeking injunction rather than settlement.103 Seeing as enforcement trends have shifted to such a great extent to allow over 95 percent of merger transactions form every year, the DOJ and FTC have clearly demonstrated a propensity to decrease
regulation of mergers, which generally favors furthering the dominance of large corporations. The Cargill case epitomizes the Court’s lenient attitude specifically against enforcement of Section 7 of the Clayton Act where the federal agencies also need to increase enforcement to uphold
the goals of the statute. Under Section 7 in the Clayton Act, the number of merger cases investigated by the DOJ have decreased in each decade following the Bork era: 125.3 merger cases per year in the pre-Bork era from 1970 to 1979,104 95.1 cases per year in the post-Bork era from
1980 to 1989,105 and most recently, only 69.8 cases per year from 2010 to 2019.106 Merger cases have experienced drastic decreases in the number of cases for which the DOJ conducts a second request, finds violation of antitrust laws, and bars a merger from proceeding from the
1970s to our current age. For agriculture enforcement specifically, since 1969 the DOJ has only filed 10 cases against company mergers for fluid milk manufacturing and dairy products, while meat packing firms have only faced 7 cases cumulatively.107 The DOJ’s decreasing regulation of
mergers that substantially harms competition has caused the agriculture market to become more consolidated; therefore, it must reinvigorate its deference to its statutory duties to uphold the Clayton Act and strike down on mergers that it foresees will and currently are, threatening
competition on the marketplace. From 2008 to 2011, the FTC challenged nearly all mergers that would result in three or fewer significant competitors, most that would result in four or fewer significant competitors, and none that would leave five or more competitors.108 This practice
closely resembles Robert Bork’s philosophy arguing that mergers resulting in four or more competitors should be presumptively lawful.109 Although the FTC was diligent in challenging mergers that would result in three or fewer significant competitors, having five large competitors on
the market still constitutes a substantially consolidated market, further decreasing competition and preventing smaller businesses from surviving and profiting.
IV. Recommendations
In order to uphold competition in the marketplace, the Courts and federal regulation agencies must take
deliberate action against mergers that will inevitably have profound effects on long-term competition.
In order to address prong one, where the Courts have not erred on the side of precaution and have not
granted antitrust injury to parties that claim “the threat of loss of profits due to possible price competition,” the Courts
should interpret American antitrust laws with Congress’s intent to protect competition, rather than
through the lens of consumer welfare, a strategy that has failed to uphold empirical integrity, seeing as
consumer prices have risen.110 Specifically, they should interpret Section 16 of the Clayton Act to allow for
antitrust injury to include the threat of loss of profits due to possible price competition following a
merger. Not only will this rightfully decrease the barrier to bringing forth an antitrust injury, but it will
bring precedent back into alignment with the purpose and intention of the Clayton Act and prevent further
consolidation in the agriculture marketplace.
In order to address prong two, where the DOJ and FTC have largely allowed consolidation in the marketplace to transpire with limited
regulation, the DOJ and FTC must increase the number of agriculture and meatpacking merger acquisitions that they block by holistically
analyzing the scope of the merger’s market power. Additionally, they must reinvestigate current corporations in the market that have unruly
market power, such as Tyson, and require divestiture. Tyson is sued on average 2.7 times every month, however, it still holds a substantially
large percentage of the meat processing and packing industry.111 By implementing both of these recommendations, the federal government
can truly fulfill their regulatory responsibilities by laying the groundwork for increasing competition by maintaining or increasing the number of
farms, distributors and meatpacking businesses.
CONCLUSION
The growing consolidation of America’s agriculture industry is alarming and poses a continuous threat to the expansion and transition to
regenerative farming practices. The
DOJ, FTC and the Courts have embraced Robert Bork’s “consumer welfare
standard” philosophy and employ stricter standards to prove antitrust injury, allowing more
consolidation to occur in the agriculture industry. These conglomerates have increased market
prices,112 and in the long run, are implementing farming practices that are destroying the soil and
security of America to produce its own food. There are more small and medium sized farms that
implement regenerative practices such as applying manure and organic fertilizers. In order to expand the
implementation of regenerative practices, large operations need to be broken down and further prevented from forming. Ultimately, allowing
merges to occur and limiting regulation on the current marketplace by the Courts and federal agencies is harming consumers, farmers, and the
government.
The principles of fairness and equal opportunity in the United States economy are threatened if we allow the
few consolidated corporations to exist in the marketplace. The government, consumers, and farmers rely on
these few firms as key suppliers and buyers; such dominance by a handful of corporations gives way to their disproportionate influence on
regulatory and political processes meant to hold them accountable. The
DOJ, FTC and Courts must utilize their statutory
responsibilities to break down this corrupt system and create a more competitive marketplace. This will
allow more firms to implement regenerative practices and protect our food systems and environment
for generations to come. A failure to act constitutes a dereliction of duty to the people, the planet, and the purpose behind antitrust
laws intended to uphold fair and ethical business practices.
AND, killer acquisitions are crushing innovation---the AFF solves.

Letina et al. 20, Department of Economics, University of Bern and CEPR. Schmutzler: Department of
Economics, University of Zurich and CEPR, “Killer Acquisitions and Beyond: Policy Effects on Innovation
Strategies,” http://pseweb.eu/ydepot/seance/513988_Killer_Acquisitions.pdf
Mergers rarely trigger interventions by competition authorities unless they involve substantial additions of incumbent market
shares. Recently, many competition policy practitioners and academics have argued that this approach to
merger control may be flawed. There is an increasing concern that mergers between firms that are not currently
competing might be problematic as well, because they may eliminate potential competition.1 Such worries
even arise when “the target firm has no explicit or immediate plans to challenge the incumbent firm on its home
turf, but is one of several firms that is best placed to do so in the next several years” (Shapiro, 2018). The issue becomes
more pressing when the acquiree is working on a technology that would enable it to compete against the
incumbent in the near future.
Such concerns arise in various sectors. For instance, in the digital economy, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and
Microsoft bought start-ups worth a total of 31.6 billion USD in 2017.2 Google acquired about one firm per month between 2001 and 2018.3
There are several conceivable motives for such behavior. For instance, the acquiring firms may be better at commercializing the ideas of the
start-ups, so that an acquisition may be efficient. Recent evidence suggests, however, that anti-competitive motives may also be important. The
work of Cunningham et al. (2020) for the pharmaceutical industry is a compelling case in point. The authors show that incumbent
firms
often engage in so-called killer acquisitions by purchasing start-ups with the sole purpose of eliminating
potential competition without intending to commercialize the entrant’s innovation .4 Even when
incumbents do commercialize the innovation, acquisitions need not be innocuous, as they may widen the
technological lead of a dominant incumbent, making entry ever harder (e.g. Bryan and Hovenkamp, 2020b).
These considerations suggest rethinking the predominant practice in most jurisdictions, which is to wave through acquisitions of small
innovative start-ups by incumbent firms.5 Indeed, there appears to be a broad consensus among economists that this approach is excessively
lenient. That said, a per-se prohibition of start-up acquisitions would not be desirable either: For instance, as many observers have pointed out,
the prospect of selling the shop should increase the entrant’s incentive to engage in innovation in the first place, no matter whether the
acquirer commercializes the entrant’s product or not.6 Going back at least to Rasmussen (1988), several academic papers have made this point
in formal models (see Section 2). However, the extent to which prohibiting acquisitions will decrease the entrant’s incentive to innovate (as well
as the extent of the anti-competitive harm) should be expected to depend on the characteristics of the market under consideration. This
suggests a market-by-market approach towards treating start-up acquisitions, where the competition authority intervenes only in markets
where the benefits from preserving potential competition outweigh any possible negative effects on innovation.
The purpose of our paper is to provide guidance for such an approach. Our analysis is based on a novel theory of R&D project choice, which
enables us to study variety and duplication of R&D projects in which incumbents and start-ups invest. We characterize the innovation effect of
prohibiting acquisitions. We show that it is weakly negative and describe how its size depends on market characteristics. We use our theory to
analyze the effects of acquisition policy and other interventions on innovation. In particular, our analysis can help to identify industries where
prohibiting acquisitions is more appropriate than elsewhere.
With this goal in mind, we provide a model that is generic rather than specifically tailored to any single
industry. In this model, an incumbent monopolist possesses a technology that allows her to operate in a
product market without incurring any innovation cost . By contrast, an entrant has to innovate in order to
produce. Contrary to most papers in the innovation literature, which only analyze the overall level of
R&D spending, we allow firms to strategically choose in which innovation projects to invest as well as
how much to invest in each project. Such a representation captures important aspects of real-world
innovation decisions.7 We assume that there is a continuum of projects and that firms choose a subset of projects to
invest in. Ex ante, projects exclusively differ with respect to investment costs; ex post, only one project will lead to an innovation. This
innovation can be drastic or non-drastic, with exogenous probability of each case . We assume that, even when
both firms discover an innovation, only one of them gets a patent. A patent holder who commercializes a drastic innovation earns monopoly
profits (which are higher than what the incumbent previously obtained), and the other firm cannot compete. A non-drastic innovation allows
the entrant to compete, while it may or may not allow the incumbent to increase her profits. In a laissez-faire setting without policy
interventions, the incumbent can acquire the entrant once the innovation outcomes become common knowledge. We assume that an
acquisition takes place if and only if it increases joint payoffs. In case an acquisition takes place, the trading surplus is
split according to exogenously given shares reflecting bargaining power.8 The firm possessing the innovation technology then decides whether
to commercialize it at some fixed cost or not. We compare this laissez-faire setting with an alternative policy regime
where acquisitions are prohibited.
We provide a full characterization of the equilibrium structure, which enables us to analyze policy effects on innovation strategies. Our main
focus is on the effects of prohibiting start-up acquisitions on innovation.9 The analysis turns out to be non-trivial because incumbents and
entrants react differently to such a policy. Nevertheless, we obtain clear results. We distinguish between two parameter regimes according to
whether the non-drastic innovation is sufficiently attractive that the incumbent would want to commercialize it or not.10 Our analysis reveals a
critical and surprising difference between these two cases. While prohibiting acquisitions always has a strictly negative innovation effect in the
case without commercialization (i.e. for killer acquisitions), this is not necessarily true for acquisitions with commercialization. Thus, even
though killer acquisitions may appear to be particularly problematic, the case for prohibiting them is not necessarily stronger than for
acquisitions with commercialization if one takes ex-ante innovation incentives into account.
Crucially, in all
equilibria in the killer acquisition case, the entrant’s incentives determine the variety of
innovation projects pursued. As the absence of the acquisition option reduces his investment incentives,
overall variety declines when acquisitions are prohibited. By contrast, when non-drastic innovations are
sufficiently valuable for the incumbent to commercialize, her incentives to innovate may be higher than
those of the entrant. In this case, the incumbent’s incentives (rather than the entrant’s) will be decisive for the variety of innovation, and it will
turn out that they are not affected by the policy regime. Without an adverse innovation effect, the prohibition of acquisitions is welfare-
improving because it exclusively enhances competition.
In all other cases, however, policy has to trade off the positive competition effect of preventing
acquisitions against the negative innovation effect. To this end, it is useful to understand for which market characteristics
the innovation effect is likely to be small. We show that, from a consumer surplus perspective, the pro-competitive
effects of prohibiting acquisitions are likely to dominate the adverse innovation effects in markets in
which the entrant’s bargaining power is low and potential competition between entrants and
incumbents is not too intense. Thus, innovation effects should not be seen as a carte blanche for
allowing acquisitions. Rather, whether or not acquisitions should be allowed depends on the specifics of
the industry
Apart from variety, the acquisition policy affects other aspects of innovation strategies. Since firms can select between R&D projects rather than
merely choose overall R&D effort, we can separate the effects of acquisitions on innovation probability from those on innovation efforts. When
acquiring the entrant is not allowed, the incumbent has a stronger incentive to invest in the same R&D projects as the entrant because this is
now the only strategy to prevent competition. Due to the potential increase in R&D duplication, the prohibition of start-up acquisitions may
increase the overall R&D investments, while nevertheless resulting in a lower probability of discovering the innovation.
In spite of our focus on acquisition policy, our analysis also provides some insights on other policy measures. We show that the variety of
pursued projects is weakly increasing in the entrant’s bargaining power and in his stand-alone duopoly profits. By contrast, variety is weakly
decreasing in the incumbent’s stand-alone duopoly profits. Thus, any policy which improves the market position of start-ups relative to
incumbents tends to increase the variety of equilibrium innovation projects and thereby the probability of a successful innovation. While
innovation policies targeting small firms are usually justified as a way to alleviate financial constraints of those firms (see Bloom et al., 2019, p.
178), our analysis suggests that such policies have a positive innovation effect even in the absence of such constraints
Industrial ag ensures extinction

Dr. Liz Kimbrough 21, Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Tulane University, BS in Botany
from Humboldt State University, Journalist at Monga Bay, “Are Major Insect Losses Imperiling Life on
Earth?”, Monga Bay, 1/28/2021, https://india.mongabay.com/2021/01/are-major-insect-losses-
imperiling-life-on-earth/
New studies assessing insect declines around the planet find that on average, the decline in insect abundance, seen on nearly every continent,
is thought to be around 1-2% per year or 10-20% per decade.
Precipitous insect declines are being escalated by humanity as soaring population and advanced
technology push us closer to overshooting several critical planetary boundaries including biodiversity, climate
change, nitrification, and pollution.
Action on a large scale (international, national, and public/private policymaking), and on a small scale (replacing lawns with insect-
friendly habitat, for example) are desperately needed to curb and reverse insect decline.
Chances are, the works of the world’s insects touch your lips every day. The coffee or tea you savor, both are pollinated by insects. Apples,
oranges, cabbages, cashews, cherries, carrots, broccoli, watermelon, garlic, cinnamon, basil, sunflower seeds, almonds, canola oil — all are
insect-pollinated. Honey, dyes, even some vaccines require insects to come to fruition.
Vital to the world’s food web, nested in nutrient cycling, and embedded in industries — the closer we look, the
more we see insects as vital to maintaining life’s frameworks. Referring to this fact, famed biologist E.O. Wilson wrote in
1987, “[I]f
invertebrates were to disappear, I doubt the human species could last more than a
few months.”
Which is why the precipitous decline of insects is raising alarms.
Insect populations are being reduced at varying rates across space and time, but on average, the decline in their abundance is thought to be
around 1-2% per year, or 10-20% per decade.
“Think of a landowner with a million-dollar house on a river that’s a little bit wild. And they’re losing 10% to 20% of their land every decade, and
it’s horrifying. It means that after even a century, you really don’t have anything left,” David Wagner, an entomologist
with the University of Connecticut told Mongabay in an interview. That, he says of this comparison, is the danger we now face.
Wagner has just edited a newly released in-depth feature in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Global Decline of Insects in the Anthropocene, in which 56 researchers
present scientific studies, opinions and news on insect declines. The journal offers perspectives on the ecological, taxonomic, geographical and sociological dimensions of insect declines, along
with suggestions on how we move forward to study and reverse this drain on global biodiversity.
Insect “death by a thousand cuts”
In a perspective piece that leads off the special issue, Wagner and his co-authors address the likely causes of insect decline. The main stressors to insects, they write, are changes in land use
(particularly deforestation), agriculture, climate change, nitrification, pollution and introduced species. However, the importance of each stressor and how they interact still puzzles scientists.
“There are so many good scientists that can’t figure out what the cause is,” Wagner said. He poses the well-known honeybee as an example. “I mean, this thing is worth billions upon billions of
dollars and we don’t know why it’s having such a hard time. And I think the reason is, it’s death by a thousand cuts… most of these things are hit by four or five pretty important stressors, and
they’re acting synergistically.”
The articles that follow that opening essay zero in on the key causes for some of the biggest known losses:
A study by Wagner and Peter Raven, president emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Garden, concludes that declines in insect
biodiversity and biomass are linked to the intensification of agriculture over the past 50 years.
Research by Dan Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs — both biologists from the University of Pennsylvania who describe themselves as “intense observers of caterpillars, their parasites, and their
associates” — focuses on climate change as a stressor. Since the late 1970s, they write, they’ve watched as insect declines came to the dry forests, cloud forests, and rainforests of Costa Rica’s
Guanacaste Conservation Area, as the region was plagued by rising temperatures, increasingly erratic seasons and inconsistent rainfall.
Another study in the special feature, titled, Insects and recent climate change, argues that climate may be playing even more of a role in declines than land-use change — which is massive
around the planet mostly due to agribusiness expansion. The authors base their climate findings on a Northern California butterflies case study, where declines were severe even in areas
suffering little habitat loss. Similar losses within well-protected areas have been detected in Germany and Puerto Rico.
Likewise, butterfly populations in Europe face challenges. In the UK, butterfly numbers have declined by around 50% over the past 50 years, with 8% of known resident species considered
extinct. In the Netherlands, upwards of 20% of species have been lost and in Belgium 29%. Researchers suggest habitat loss, habitat degradation and chemical pollution as the primary causes.
The authors offer conservation solutions and recommend policy changes to conserve butterflies and other insects — but so far political will has been lacking.
Moving from the winged creatures of the day to night fliers, Wagner and colleagues give an overview of the global state of moth declines. Moths are extremely diverse and cosmopolitan. “For
every butterfly that Mongabay readers see during the daytime, there are 19 species of moths flying around at night,” Wagner revealed.
Although moth numbers have declined in some areas, such as in parts of Europe and Central America, in other, mostly temperate areas, many moth taxa are increasing in abundance. Another
study found that the overall abundance of arthropods in the Arctic has increased in recent years. Researchers attribute these increases in insect abundance to climate change, which scientists
say has both its species winners and losers. As warmer temperatures march northward, new suitable habitats open up for insects. The consequences of this range expansion — and the
conflicts which may occur with plant and insect species already occupying those ranges — have yet to be analysed.
Insect declines are emblematic of a larger problem: the earth is in the midst of what some call the “sixth mass extinction.” Birds, amphibians,
freshwater mussels, large mammals, all have seen dwindling numbers. The question for entomologists, Wagner said, is whether or not the
decline of insects is actually occurring faster than for some other groups, especially because insects are often the direct target of
destruction by human, due to pesticide and herbicide use.
Sarah Cornell, a scientist at the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC), raises an insect-related question relevant to our time: “There might have
been many more mass extinctions. It’s just that we only see extinctions with the things that leave a record… things with skeletons… When
people [say], ‘we’re entering the sixth mass extinction.’ Okay, well, how do we know that? We might be entering the 17th?… We might
make ourselves extinct before we even reach these hallowed glories of the sixth.”
Overshooting planetary boundaries
Clearly, the
loss of insect abundance — depending on where and how fast it occurs — could have far more
dire, unforeseen impacts than the loss of coffee or cashews. The wholesale transformation of global ecosystems,
triggering mass insect declines, could be pushing the Earth past what scientists have dubbed as a “planetary
boundary.”
Antitrust is key---it is authorizing concentration which subverts any other control

mechanism.
Marshall Steinbaum 19, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Utah, Article: Antitrust, The
Gig Economy, And Labor Market Power, 82 Law & Contemporary Problems. 45, Nexis Uni
Worker bargaining power has diminished over the last forty years. Between 1948 and 1979, median
wages closely tracked output per worker. 1Since then, productivity has continued to increase (until leveling
off in the decade of the 2000s), while median pay has stagnated, creating an ever-widening gap between
median wages and productivity. The widening gap contrasts with the central prediction of neoclassical
economic theory about the labor market: that workers are paid what they are worth. 2At the same time,
inequality within the distribution of labor income is higher, and has risen faster, than can possibly be explained by any notion of a skills gap
between workers and the needs of today's employers. 3And since the 2000s, these dual trends demarcating the declining bargaining power of
workers in the economy have been joined by a third: the reduction in labor's share of national income, which economists had assumed was
stable over the long run. In fact, it has ratcheted downward over the last two business cycles. 4
The aim of this paper is to augment the interpretation of these trends with an element that has received very little attention from labor-
oriented scholars: the decline and erosion of antitrust law and its enforcement. Whereas there was once a sharp line where labor law ended
and antitrust began, there is now a gray area, within which a more powerful firm can tell a less-powerful contractor or worker what to do
without being liable under antitrust or labor law. The erosion of the statutory employment relationship, and thus the ability of employers to
evade the [*46] obligations that go along with it, has received wide attention from labor scholars and in public debate. What has been ignored
is that the deterioration of antitrust is what legally allows more powerful firms to tell subordinate firms, contractors, and workers what to do
even if those subordinates are not, legally, their employees. Antitrust has also prevented those same subordinates from coordinating among
themselves to strengthen their own hand in negotiations.
This paper considers two different ways that antitrust has

contributed to the increasing imbalance of power
between employers and workers. First, antitrust has legalized vertical restraints, allowing the economy's
most powerful actors to closely direct and supervise the behavior of less-powerful actors. Second,
antitrust has been used by those same powerful actors to prevent less-powerful actors from organizing
and coordinating on their own behalf against such concentrations of power.
Parts II and III of this article deal with each of these, and the Part IV proposes a policy agenda for putting the antitrust laws to work in the labor market according to their original purpose: namely, to de-concentrate economic power. II Vertical Restraints and the Fissured Workplace David Weil's book The Fissured Workplace describes a crucial component of the decline in labor's bargaining power: the gradual disappearance of the traditional, and statutory, employment relationship. 5Instead of uniting workers at different levels of the labor market hierarchy (wages, skills,
and social prestige), the contemporary corporation has become a mechanism for segregating low-wage (and even some middle-wage) workers from the economy's dominant decision-makers: the executives and shareholders of the economy's leading corporations and the financial institutions that own and control them. Although most workers remain statutory employees of some employer, they are increasingly remote from the decision-making entity that exerts power over their day-to-day lives and terms of work. 6 Weil is himself a former senior official responsible for
enforcing federal labor law, and he rightly points to the ease with which employers can evade that law by re-classifying workers as either independent contractors or as employees of their contractors as a crucial element in legalizing this fissured business model. 7Many other scholars and organizations, including worker organizations, have emphasized changes in labor law that are very important to understanding how these trends erode worker bargaining power in the economy and ensure that it takes the form of inter-firm wage segregation. 8Specifically, the National
Labor [*47] Relations Act 9and the Fair Labor Standards Act, 10as well as numerous other state and federal labor regulations, impose tests for statutory employment as a necessary precondition for a worker to enjoy their protections. Increasingly, employers who classify their workers as exempt contractors rather than employees are able to pass these tests, thanks to deferential court rulings, 11technologies that enable employers to manage workers from afar, and industry deregulation that legalizes new, vertically dis-integrated business models in a given sector, among
many other causes. These all give employers both the legal means and the pecuniary motive to push their workers outside the legal boundaries of the firm under whose effective control they remain. Weil's research is classified methodologically as industry case studies of what he calls the "lead firms" that direct and control a series of contractors and affiliates that actually employ the workers and do the work. His findings have been confirmed by more traditional economics studies of inter-firm earnings inequality using matched employer-employee data from a variety of
sources. 12For instance, Song and others used social security records to document the rise in inter-firm inequality; increasingly, the highest-paid workers work for the firms where average pay is the highest. 13This is not because those firms are inherently more productive than other firms due to their firm-specific characteristics, but rather that they have gotten better at sorting out well-paid and highly-educated workers and excluding low-and middle-wage workers from their employment. 14A study by Abowd and others of data from state unemployment insurance
records verifies these distinctions, and attaches further significance to working at a well-paid firm. Not only do workers earn more now, but they do so for the rest of their careers. 15"High-paying firms facilitate moving workers to the top of the earnings distribution and keeping them there." 16Labor market surveys paint a similar picture. 17 In a competitive labor market, the identity of a worker's firm is irrelevant to what he or she gets paid, because if any worker were paid less than they were worth they would quickly switch to a job offering them their competitive
market wage. In a competitive labor market equilibrium, all firms pay the same to all [*48] workers with similar characteristics. In reality, though, firms have considerable discretion to dictate pay, because outside job offers are sufficiently hard to obtain that it is unlikely that workers will have the option to leave. 18In other words, labor markets are not competitive, as evidenced by the increasing earnings inequality between firms. The aforementioned research on inter-firm inequality shows that workers are increasingly remote from profits and from centers of economic
power. 19Anyone familiar with the history of labor organizing, worker solidarity, and the conditions for social mobility can recognize that under those conditions, it's impossible for workers to benefit from economic growth. An article from the New York Times in 2017 made this point by contrasting the experience of janitors working at the corporate headquarters of Kodak in the early 1980s versus Apple today. The Kodak janitor was employed by the company, enjoyed a tuition subsidy as part of her benefits package, learned how to use inventory software as part of
obtaining a college degree on the job, and ultimately worked her way up within Kodak to be head of IT for the whole company. 20Meanwhile, the Apple janitor is employed by a contracted, franchised janitorial services firm, enjoys no part of the benefits package of an Apple employee, and has no chance of obtaining a promotion up the hierarchy of what is now one of the economy's most valuable single firms. 21 The antitrust side of the story of the separation of workers from lead firms is the simultaneous erosion in the jurisprudence of the Sherman Act's prohibitions on
vertical restraints. In the context of antitrust, a vertical restraint is a contractual provision or mode of operation that restricts the autonomy of the counterparty in the case where each party operates at a distinct segment of the supply chain. For example, if an automobile manufacturing company operates a network of independently owned dealerships, and its dealers are forbidden from selling within a given radius of another authorized dealer's location, that is territorial exclusivity, a non-price vertical restraint. If such a contract imposes the final retail price of said
automobiles, that is vertical price-fixing, or in antitrust lingo, resale price maintenance, which can be either a minimum or a maximum (or both, in the case of one definite price at which the car would be re-sold). Other vertical restraints include the varieties of exclusive practices that suppliers might impose on their affiliated dealers or distributors, like compulsory purchase contracts - known as full-line forcing or requirements contracts. 22 [*49] Such exclusive dealing was the subject of the 1951 antitrust case United States v. Richfield Oil Co. 23The case concerned the
relations between a dominant oil refiner and gasoline supplier - Richfield Oil - and its affiliated service stations, which were required to source their gasoline solely from Richfield and to carry exclusively retail auto parts, sponsored products, according to supply contracts negotiated by Richfield, rather than seeking out and negotiating their own sources of supply according to their customers' preferences. The court ruled unequivocally for the government on the grounds that it exercised de facto control over these "independent business men," in contravention of the
antitrust laws, despite the fact that they were not employees of the company. That case created a sharp distinction and a comprehensive delineation between the realm of labor and antitrust: if subordinate entities are "independent business men" and not employees, it is illegal to exercise control. The United States Supreme Court affirmed the same basic principle against coercion of non-employees by vertical supply contract in the 1964 case Simpson v. Union Oil Co. of California. 24 It is precisely through the erosion of the Richfield Oil standard that the fissured workplace
has been allowed to come about. Independent business people are independent for the purposes of evading labor law, but once pushed outside the border of the firm, the restrictions antitrust places on their domination have been all but erased. As such, what Weil calls lead firms can continue to exercise control and direct their business operations by contract. 25Those contracts would once have been illegal, before antitrust jurisprudence began to search out spurious justifications for their immunity on the basis of supposed efficiency. 26For example, manufacturers
would want their branded distributors to be bound by contractual provisions to ensure that dealers represent the brand effectively to customers, rather than hide their poor customer service behind the brand's overall prestige, or that they must contribute to its marketing budget and abide by its standardized branding and pricing policies. Theoretically, this would serve the overall collective interest of the supplier-distributor network. The efficiencies to be gained by permitting franchisors to exercise overall direction and control were assumed to flow eventually to
consumers in the form of increased output, enhanced variety or quality, or lower prices - all reflecting the fact that vertical control exercised this way is, in fact, pro-rather than anti-competitive and therefore ought not to be penalized by the antitrust laws. 27 [*50] Brian Callaci lays out how this process occurred in one sector, so-called business-format franchising. 28As he writes, "While the economic boundaries of the firm correspond to the extent of centrally planned and hierarchically coordinated production, the legal boundaries are set in politically contested
legislatures and courts. Exploiting or creating mismatches between the two has enabled corporations to enjoy economic benefits of vertical integration while avoiding many of the legal risks and costs." 29In the case of franchising, that took the exact form that courts had ruled illegal in Richfield Oil and Simpson v. Union Oil Co. of California: franchisors licensed their trademarks and business models to an army of franchisees, who would be granted exclusive territories in exchange for agreeing to exclusive supply contracts, all enforced by the threat of dealer terminations.
Economists, particularly those operating in the Law and Economics tradition, have interpreted the rise of these hybrid structures, part firm, part market organizations, as reflecting the evolution of an efficient allocation of coordination rights and the alignment of incentives between principal and agent so as to remove the need for direct supervision and take advantage of economies of scale and specialization. 30But Callaci shows that, in fact, the advent and spread of franchising was not due to the law catching up with the natural evolution of a business model marked by
superior efficiency. Rather, it is due to a concerted lobbying campaign 31to pry apart the sharp border between labor and antitrust represented by Richfield Oil and grow a whole business model in the legal gray area. 32As far as antitrust was concerned, the operation was meant to roll back the per se illegality of non-price vertical restraints that existed in antitrust following the Supreme Court's ruling in United States v. Arnold, Schwinn & Co. in 1967, and the per se illegality for maximum resale price maintenance that existed following the Court's ruling in Albrecht v. Herald
Company in 1968. 33With the Court's decisions in Continental Television v. GTE Sylvaniain 1977 and in State Oil Co. v. Khan in 1997, antitrust immunity for vertical integration by contract was complete. 34 It was not just antitrust where franchisors and their trade association were able to have their way. In 1966, the Small Business Administration re-classified franchisees as independent to avail themselves of subsidized federal loans, [*51] despite concerns that this was essentially financing the marketing and distribution activities of some of the economy's largest and most
powerful corporations. 35The general counsel to the agency, Philip F. Zeidman, who had advocated internally for that policy change, subsequently served as counsel to the International Franchise Association for almost four decades. 36Just last year, the inspector general of the SBA concluded that its loans to poultry growers are likely illegal because those small businesses are in fact under such direct control from the major poultry integrators - Perdue, Tysons, and Koch Poultry - that the farmers cannot be considered small businesses. 37 In addition to their treatment of
franchisees as independent in order to qualify them for subsidized loans, the franchisors were successful at limiting the definition of joint employer under the National Labor Relations Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act so that they could not legally be considered employers of their franchisees' workers. 38That made any attempt by workers to bargain collectively against both franchisees and franchisors a secondary boycott, a practice expressly prohibited by the Taft-Hartley Act. 39Altogether, these changes gave franchisors maximum control, but minimal responsibility,
and led the business models of franchisees toward poor treatment of low-wage workers, since franchisees have few, if any other margins, in which to exercise their autonomy in order to increase profits. Recently, the issue of no-poaching restrictions in franchising contracts has drawn attention from researchers, 40elected officials, 41and antitrust enforcers. 42In such contracts, franchisees commit not to hire workers employed by franchisees elsewhere in the franchising network of which they are a member. Correspondingly, the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department
has made its view known to a federal court where private litigation against such a no-poach provision is underway. It argued that no-poaching provisions in franchise agreements are akin to other restrictive vertical contractual provisions in franchising contracts and hence subject to the rule of reason, the permissive standard put in place by Continental Television v. GTE Sylvania and State Oil Co. [*52] v. Khan. 43The DOJ specifically rejects the idea that franchising networks are hub-and-spoke arrangements, 44therefore that no-poach clauses might be horizontal
agreements not to compete and thus illegal per se. This intervention by the DOJ leans against the relatively pro-enforcement posture it expressed in 2016 in its "Guidance for Human Resource Professionals." 45The prior administration never stated whether no-poaching provisions in franchising contracts were to be treated as per se illegal or considered under the rule of reason. But alongside the unwillingness of the NLRB to extend dual-employer status to franchisors as well as franchisees (and notwithstanding a recent federal appellate ruling constraining its ability to do
so), 46this use of no-poach clauses reflects powerful employers' ability to direct and restrict the activities and employment of their workers, without being answerable in any way to those workers themselves. The contentions the DOJ makes in its statement of interest are in conflict with the economics of no-poaching agreements in labor markets where employer market power is pervasive. 47There is no functional difference between a series of uniform, bilateral, putatively vertical no-poaching agreements, collectively barring franchisees in a franchising network from
hiring workers from elsewhere in the network, and a single multilateral, putatively horizontal no-poaching agreement between the individual franchisees. Those two things have the same anti-competitive effect on labor markets. Thus, antitrust law should not treat them differently based on the horizontal versus vertical formalism. The DOJ brief appeals to the potential for countervailing efficiencies that swayed the Supreme Court to abandon per se treatment of non-price vertical restraints in Continental Television v. GTE Sylvania. Notably, however, those ostensible
benefits accrue to consumers, not to workers, if they accrue to anyone at all other than the company imposing the restraint. If antitrust law implicates competition in labor markets as well as competition in output markets, as the DOJ agrees is the case, then it should not justify anti-competitive restraints that harm workers by making the labor market less competitive by claiming they might benefit consumers. 48Moreover, the amicus curiae brief filed by the Attorney General of Washington State points out that franchising networks contain both franchisor-owned and
franchisee-owned establishments, rendering a no-poaching agreement binding on franchisees likely to restrain them from hiring retail [*53] workers employed by franchisors. 49Altogether, the pending litigation over franchising no-poaching agreements highlights antitrust's tolerance for restraints that bind both franchisees and their workers. This belies recent claims by several antitrust authorities that labor markets and product markets are treated symmetrically under current antitrust jurisprudence and enforcement. 50They are not. More recently than the expansion of
franchising under permissive antitrust treatment is the advent of the so-called gig economy: the deployment of independent contractor status for workers, not just for the independent businesses who employ them. This makes each individual worker an independent business, and thus denuded of any protections under labor law. However, they can simultaneously be controlled entirely by employer/customers without the protections and stability of the employment relationship enshrined in statute during the New Deal. This is the business model that online labor
platforms like Uber, Lyft, Handy, and Care.com have perfected: under the law, workers deal bilaterally with gigs whose employers have none of the standard obligations of employers, while the platform operates the entire labor market to its own benefit - what Sanjukta Paul has called a "for-profit hiring hall." 51This is enabled by the GPS technology of monitoring workers, the ability of the platform to dictate the terms on which participants will transact, the use of customer ratings as a pretext for de-activation rather than direct supervision, and the immunity of all of this
from any regulatory scrutiny or collective bargaining on the part of workers of any sort. In 2016, an Uber customer filed an antitrust suit against Uber 52and its CEO in New York claiming that it amounted to a price-and wage-fixing conspiracy among hundreds of thousands of independent businesses - its drivers, for whom Uber determines and dictates the terms on which its drivers are allocated customers and the prices that will be charged to them, including the share earned by the driver. 53The genesis of the suit was the repeated failed efforts to have drivers classified as
employees under state and federal labor regulations. To defeat those suits, Uber claimed to be a software company licensing its service [*54] to independent drivers for the ease of contacting potential customers. As such, they did not employ the drivers, nor did Uber directly provide transportation to customers. If drivers are not employees, so the theory behind the antitrust suit went, then they must be independent businesses, and hence Uber setting the terms on which they transact with customers, including fixing the prices charged to customers, constitutes a violation
of the Sherman Act's ban on restraints of trade. In this respect, the plaintiff was helped by the precedent set by the Apple E-books antitrust case, which proceeded against Apple and five book publishers for conspiring to set up an alternative E-books platform to Amazon's. 54That case was ruled to be a hub-and-spoke conspiracy and thus per se illegal. 55If Apple and five book publishers is hub-and-spoke, why not Uber and a hundred thousand drivers? 56 In the end, Meyer v. Kalanick, was sent to arbitration rather than litigation thanks to the mandatory arbitration clause
included in Uber's terms of service. Therefore, the issue of whether Uber is a price-fixing conspiracy, and whether that price-fixing is horizontal, was never resolved at trial. But Uber did commission at least two economics papers that signal what its antitrust defense would have been: Uber's control over its drivers, including price-fixing, benefits customers because it increases the consumer surplus in the ridesharing market. 57 This illustrates the core reason why all of these business models that subordinate the interests of workers, franchisees, and suppliers generally to
those of dominant buyers obtain immunity from antitrust law as it is currently interpreted: the consumer welfare standard, which holds that the sole metric for assessing harm to competition within the meaning of the antitrust laws is the effect on consumers, and in practice, the effect on prices charged to consumers. 58If the restrictions operated by Uber, by franchisors, by poultry integrators, and by powerful businesses generally can be shown to benefit consumers, or at least not to harm them, then they are ipso facto immune from antitrust liability. This constriction of
what the antitrust laws prohibit is a far cry from Richfield Oil, which contains an overt analysis of power dynamics in the supplier-distributor relationship as the reason why antitrust must lean against such a [*55] concentration of power on behalf of the dominant entity. 59Instead, the attenuated conception of economics that has developed more recently within legal reasoning and jurisprudence - consumer welfare and price effects as the sole criterion of harm to competition - explains much of how the labor market and the economy generally got to where it is today. In
particular, how workers and contractors have been prevented from accessing the profits generated by the economy's leading firms through the exercise of unilateral power to dictate the contractual terms. Thanks to that, workers suffer from wage stagnation and a deterioration in job quality, including total control by the entity that is, economically, if not legally, their boss. Two further aspects of the ridesharing platform business model are worth pointing out here: surveillance and non-linear driver pay structures. In the summer of 2018, a team of company-affiliated
economists released yet another paper pointing to Uber's ostensibly efficiency-enhancing business model. 60The researchers compared the tendency of Uber drivers to shirk by taking longer-distance routes between the same two endpoints to the tendency of New York City taxi drivers to do the same. The meaningful differences between the two groups consisted of routes taken for fares originating at LaGuardia Airport and terminating in Manhattan. The researchers found that Uber drivers tend to shirk less than do taxi drivers, which they attribute to the fact that both
Uber itself and the customer in the back seat can monitor the driver in real time using GPS, whereas traditional taxi drivers retain more discretion, and apparently use it to increase their take-home pay at riders' expense. But the ability to monitor employees in real time is part of both the statutory definition of employment and the economic concept of control. According to the paper, Uber's use of monitoring technology to improve the service enjoyed by its customers is exactly the context in which we would recognize that an employment relationship exists and grant
rights to the employee. 61Instead, Uber drivers remain subordinate to Uber, which sets their fares and the share they take home. Taxi drivers, on the other hand, are normally also independent contractors, but they are genuinely more independent in that they are not monitored in real time. And neither they nor the medallion owner (if the driver does not own his own medallion) has discretion to set prices. Instead, fares in the taxi market are regulated. Uber was also found to be operating a program nicknamed "Hell" that monitored whether drivers were multi-homing
(i.e., logging into more than one ridesharing platform simultaneously to choose between competing fares) or single-homing and penalized the ones that were not taking customers on the Uber platform exclusively. 62More generally, the ridesharing companies operate bonus- [*56] based driver pay policies with a low base rate and a bonus for achieving a certain acceptance rate, or service in a given geographic area. 63This system effectively requires sole use of a single app and following that app's directions about where and when to work in order to win. While not
technically requiring exclusivity on the part of drivers, this pay structure makes it very likely. 64And while such exclusive dealing (and market division, if there were to be any agreement to engage in similar non-linear bonus-based pay policies between Uber and Lyft) might be thought to implicate antitrust, those companies have seemingly faced no public enforcement since the Meyer v. Kalanickcase was forced into arbitration. These instances of increasing control of drivers by ridesharing platforms correspond to the general picture of ride-sharing employment that Alex
Rosenblat paints in her recent book Uberland. 65Rosenblat argues that the labor platforms are re-making the terms of employment to their own liking, exercising power over price-setting, quality and terms of service, and all manner of other relevant margins to customers and to workers, while disclaiming all responsibility. 66Initially, Uber and similar online labor platforms presented themselves as neutral market-makers matching drivers to customers, ameliorating the search frictions inherent in any labor market through the innovative application of new technology.
67Now, though, the platforms present their contribution to public welfare more as arising directly from their control over the market and its participants, rather than from their neutral facilitation of bilateral transactions. This hybrid business model of total control but no responsibility as an employer is one optimized not only to the erosion of labor protections, but also to the erosion of antitrust's restrictions on vertical restraints. In fact, it is highly reminiscent of the arguments found in the Law and Economics literature validating antitrust's increasing permissiveness
toward vertical restraints on the grounds that the concentration and consolidation of power within the economy is economically efficient. 68However, there's nothing optimal or efficient about it, other than the efficient use of regulatory arbitrage to dominate and extract rents from every other counterparty and stakeholder in the market without having to follow the laws that bind everyone else. [*57] III Antitrust and Collective Bargaining in the Gig Economy The erosion of antitrust in the direction of permitting vertical price-and non-price restraints has effectively legalized
labor outsourcing, misclassification, and the gig economy. This has resulted in dominant firms having access to a wider range of profitable business models that exert greater power and control over workers than they once did. Fundamentally, this trend within antitrust is in the direction of increasing the power of the economy's most powerful actors. The flip side of this is that antitrust law has also made it more difficult for less powerful actors to collectively mitigate such power inequities. Sandeep Vaheesan refers to Albert Hirschman to make this point: not only has
antitrust made it harder for workers and small businesses to exit in order to exercise countervailing power; it has also prevented them from using voice to do so. 69All of the mechanisms of concentrated power described in Part II could be categorized as curtailing workers' use of exit strategies to evade the control of their employers. This Part focuses on antitrust's dual opposition to worker voice. Between the passage of the Sherman Act in 1890 and the Norris-LaGuardia Act in 1932, the federal antitrust enforcers used the former to curtail the collective bargaining
activities of militant (and effective) labor organizing. In 1892, the Supreme Court ruled that the Workingmen's Amalgamated Council of New Orleans was illegal coordination by labor groups in violation of the Sherman Act's ban on restraints of trade. 70In 1894, the Cleveland Administration accused Eugene V. Debs, the head of the American Railway Union, of entering into criminal restraints of trade for organizing the Pullman Strike, including a nationwide boycott of trains carrying Pullman Cars. In fact, as the Supreme Court ultimately ruled on the case, the Sherman Act
proved to be unnecessary: the Court held that the government could obtain an injunction against the strike and imprisonment of Debs without any statutory authorization, as it amounted to an exercise of its legitimate law enforcement powers to crush civil unrest. 71 Likewise, in the 1908 case Loewe v. Lawlor, a company that had been targeted by a nationwide boycott on the part of the American Federation of Labor successfully sued the union trying to obtain recognition as its workers' bargaining agent under the Sherman Act. 72The Supreme Court agreed that such a
boycott was an illegal restraint of trade and forced the union and its members to pay treble damages to their employer. 73These three cases show that the antitrust laws were a potent weapon in the hands of employers seeking to prevent unionization. During the same period, the government struggled half-heartedly to find a way to use the Sherman Act to limit corporate power, but it moved [*58] decisively, with the full cooperation of the judiciary, to use it to curtail labor power. 74 The Clayton Act of 1914 included an exemption for labor from the antitrust laws, 75but
courts interpreted it narrowly such that secondary boycotts were still illegal. 76It was not until the Norris-LaGuardia Act that unions were entirely immunized from antitrust liability. But in the jurisprudence of the so-called labor exemption that developed in the decade or so thereafter, antitrust immunity came to be connected to statutory employment status, like the right to collectively bargain itself. 77Therefore, in the current era of the erosion of statutory employment, we also have the erosion of the antitrust labor exemption. The Federal Trade Commission has
undertaken a long-running campaign against collective action by associations of professionals who seek to constrain entry, and in some cases, to forbid their members from soliciting business away from fellow members and to set minimum prices for their services. The commission has brought such cases against doctors, church organists, ice-skating instructors, music teachers, and public defenders. 78This enforcement line has accompanied a push by the agency to reduce state action, meaning the regulatory authority of states or municipalities to displace competition in
favor of some other legitimate policy goal, notwithstanding prohibitions in federal law. For example, municipal taxi regulatory regimes, which limit the total number of taxis on the road, impede entry into the taxi business. However, this impediment has the legitimate purpose of preventing market saturation, thereby ensuring that driving a taxi is a viable full-time job. It also hopefully ensures that coverage is universal in both time and space and that a customer unfamiliar with the city can obtain a licensed and qualified professional rather than an unsafe or just unqualified
service provider. Some of the FTC's campaign against restrictions on competition in the market for service professionals consisted of attacks on licensing regimes that effectively protect incumbents and limit competition. The FTC's "economic liberty task force" is devoted to this, as was the case the FTC litigated to the Supreme Court in 2015 and won: North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners. 79The ruling held that a state board consisting primarily of members of the profession being regulated could not benefit from the state action exemption. 80 [*59] Even before the
recent campaign against the state action exemption, the FTC involved itself in efforts by independent contractors to organize themselves in response to the trucking deregulation that de-unionized the sector in the late 1970s. Port truckers aspired to bargain collectively against logistics companies that were coordinating trucking services on behalf of powerful wholesalers and retailers and subjected them to low pay, long hours, and thus high turnover. The FTC as well as quasi-public entities like port authorities intervened on behalf of those companies and accused the
truckers of violating the Sherman Act during organizing drives in the late 1990s and 2000s. 81This stance is consonant with the rationale behind trucking and transportation deregulation in the first place: that inefficient suppliers, middlemen, and stakeholders were preventing efficiencies attending to unitary control from being realized in regulated industries. Therefore, competition in the deregulation era would drive down the rents being earned by those insiders. Permitting truckers to bargain collectively as contractors once they had been de-unionized would have
sacrificed all those supposed gains. The FTC also dissuaded Ohio from passing a state law that would have allowed independent contractor home health aides to bargain collectively with staffing companies and their clients in 2008. 82 The logic for these types of enforcement decisions can be found in the consumer welfare standard, just as was the case for vertical restraints imposed by dominant firms: protecting consumers is all that matters, and consumers are protected best when the most efficient firms have sufficient power and discretion to control the market,
including at multiple levels of the supply chain, without having to reckon with any other stakeholder. On this reasoning, collective action by port truckers, home health aides, church organists, or gig economy workers is inefficient rent-seeking, and antitrust action against it "protects competition, not competitors." The superior efficiency to be found in, for example, Uber having the power to surveil, direct, and fix prices for its drivers, despite their independent contractor status, would be threatened if drivers had the power to mediate that surveillance or price-setting
through any kind of co-determination. It is against this background of hostility to state and local regulation and collective bargaining that the FTC and the Department of Justice intervened in another antitrust case involving Uber. After the lawsuits alleging employment misclassification against Uber had been sent to arbitration, the Seattle City Council passed an ordinance granting collective bargaining rights to ridesharing drivers who are not employees. 83The Chamber of Commerce, acting on behalf of Uber, filed an antitrust claim against the city for facilitating a violation
of the Sherman Act: collective bargaining over wages and working conditions by non-employee drivers. 84After the federal district court sided with the city that its [*60] ordinance was covered by the state action exemption, 85the federal antitrust agencies filed an amicus brief in circuit court alleging that the state action exemption was limited to the customer-facing side of the taxi market and thus did not cover anti-competitive regulation of ride-sharing drivers. 86The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the district court, 87setting up an antitrust trial about whether
the ridesharing collective bargaining ordinance was, in fact, anti-competitive. The federal agencies further suggested in their brief that if not covered by the state action exemption, driver collective bargaining is a per se violation of the Sherman Act, a naked restraint with no possible pro-competitive justification. 88 Rather than fight the case on the merits, Seattle modified the ordinance to remove collective bargaining over wages, in the hope of at least salvaging some version of collective bargaining without running afoul of antitrust laws. 89But the Chamber has apparently
not been satisfied by that significant concession; in renewed filings, it demanded that the ordinance be wholly abandoned, because naming an exclusive bargaining agent for ridesharing drivers amounts to an illegal group boycott against any driver who does not wish to be represented collectively. 90
At this point, it
is clear that the federal agencies are fully behind the use of antitrust laws to undermine
worker bargaining power, just as much as they are behind the non-use of the antitrust laws against
employer power and control in the fissured workplace. As Sanjukta Paul has pointed out, if the church organist
professional organization had, instead of publishing guidelines preventing its members from
underbidding one another for gigs, programmed an app to match organists to churches seeking their
services, and prevented their members from performing at a church matched to another member via
the app, the antitrust authorities would have been just as solicitous of the organists' app as they have
been of Uber's price-fixing and market-division business model - provided the organists' app had been operated in the
interest of a "for-profit hiring hall" like Uber, as opposed to in the interest of the organists themselves. 91That jurisprudence and disposition of
enforcement resources effectively means that Uber drivers or organists as workers are paying a significant price to the unitary [*61] platforms
coordinating the labor market in which those workers sell their services for the privilege of restraining trade and avoiding a free-for-all.
92Should any antitrust case against Uber for price-fixing, exclusion, or market division ever see the light of day after Meyer v. Kalanick, it's likely
that the agencies would take the view that its restraints are vertical and hence subject to the Rule of Reason (as the DOJ has argued in the
litigation over no-poaching clauses in franchising contracts 93), rather than per se illegal like non-employee driver collective bargaining. As
Sandeep Vaheesan has phrased it, antitrust is about "accommodating capital and policing labor." 94
IV Conclusion: Using Antitrust to Re-balance Power in Labor Markets
This paper sets out an important but under-appreciated aspect of the rise in labor market precarity and diminishing worker bargaining power:
the erosion of antitrust laws restricting dominant firms' ability to use vertical restraints to control and restrict both less powerful affiliates and
the workers who work for them, and the concurrent use of antitrust against any attempt by those workers or independent businessmen or
contractors to bargain collectively against such concentrations of power. In ascertaining the causes of contemporary inequality in wealth,
income, and social status, especially with respect to the labor market, we cannot overlook the role that antitrust has played.
This contrasts with a recent Economic Policy Institute paper by Heidi Shierholz and Josh Bivens that treats the rise of employer power in labor
markets, and the extent to which weakening antitrust has caused that phenomenon, as a less important cause of rising inequality and stagnant
wages compared to the erosion of labor law and thus of collective bargaining. 95Their evidence for the contention that diminishing worker
bargaining power matters more than concentrated employer bargaining power is that inequality within the distribution of labor income is a
more significant cause of stagnating wages and the growing gap between median worker pay and average worker productivity than is the
declining labor share of national income, which is of more recent vintage than either of the first two economic trends.
But we cannot map rising labor income inequality to worker bargaining power and labor law and the
declining labor share of income to employer power and antitrust so neatly. As the analysis in Parts II and III show,
income inequality [*62] is to a large extent caused by rising earnings inequality between firms, rather
than between workers, reflecting employer power to set wages. This is the result of the legalization of business
models like the fissured workplace that allow powerful employers to segregate workers from the profits they earn for their bosses. The point of
Part II of this paper is that the fissured workplace is the product of both labor regulation and antitrust. Thus, increasing inequality of power
between employers and workers cannot be coherently treated as two separate phenomena: rising employer power, and declining worker
power.
That means the solution to unequal bargaining power is not necessarily or not entirely an antitrust solution, but antitrust must play a
major part, since it implicates the business models available to the economy's dominant firms. In
particular, we should seek, through revived antitrust and labor regulations that both take account of how the economy actually
works, and how power is exercised within it, to re-establish the sharp distinction embodied in Richfield Oil . Either workers are employees, in
which case they can be controlled by their bosses, who in turn owe them statutory protections including the right to bargain collectively, or
they are independent businesses, in which case they cannot be coerced by contract or by any other means. Proposals to extend and strengthen
labor law tests for statutory employment to take account of gig economy technologies are crucial, but they will be ineffective so long as
employers and lead firms retain the strong incentive to push workers outside their protection. The
role of antitrust in that context
is to create a significant cost to so doing: the potential for treble damages under antitrust liability
should a lead firm be caught coordinating and directing the activities of its non-employee subsidiaries
and contractors. That is the mechanism that would weigh against employers' incentive to mis-classify.
Putting such an antitrust regime in place entails the abandonment of both the consumer welfare
standard and, with it, the Chicago School's jurisprudence of vertical restraints. Instead, any vertical restraint,
price or non-price, should be a presumptive violation of the Sherman Act if it is imposed by a firm with
market power. And antitrust's definition of market power must, in turn, be expanded beyond the confined
market-share-based Sherman Act jurisprudence to instead take account of the many ways economists have
of testing for the existence of market power. Firms would be judged to have market power if they:
* Have the power to unilaterally raise prices for their customers or lower them for their suppliers, including workers;
* Wage-or price-discriminate among customers, suppliers, or workers;
* Unilaterally impose non-price, uncompensated contractual provisions on their counterparties, like non-compete agreements in labor
contracts;
* Impede or control entry by would-be competitors; or
* Earn profits and/or make payments to their shareholders at a rate in excess of their market cost of capital.
[*63] All of these things are economic indicia of market power because they could not be done by any one or more firms acting in concert in
the face of competition from rivals - therefore they should be legal indicia of market power as well. 96
Drilling down on how the antitrust laws should target labor market monopsony in particular, not merely prohibit vertical restraints that enable
fissured workplace-style business models, the antitrust authorities should bring a monopsonization suit against an online labor platform like
Uber that fixes wages and imposes exclusivity on independent businesses, along the lines of Meyer v. Kalanick. If, as would be expected, that
case would be adjudicated under the Rule of Reason, despite its economic equivalence to the FTC's per se cases against professional
organizations and unions of independent contractors, then Congress should streamline the Rule of Reason for labor monopsony. This should be
done along the lines proposed by Ioana Marinescu and Eric Posner, setting out principles to guide market definition that are responsive to
measured firm-level labor supply elasticities. 97In fact, if firms have the unilateral power to dictate wages without causing a significant share of
their workforce to leave, then the proper market definition for a monopsonization case may be significantly smaller than the one those authors
recommend as a baseline. The point of such a suit is to force Uber to choose one business model or another: either employ the drivers if Uber
wants to fix their wages and monitor them on the job, or give up the price-setting and market coordination power that makes the platform such
a value proposition for its investors. It cannot be allowed to do both. Meanwhile, workers themselves who are not statutory employees should
be protected by antitrust's labor exemption and should be permitted to bargain collectively. However, any such extension of the labor
exemption must not also immunize the powerful employer against whom they would seek to bargain. And at the very least, both no-poaching
clauses in franchising contracts and non-compete clauses in employment contracts should be illegal per se. 98
Finally, analysis of labor market impact should be incorporated in the statutory prospective merger review process that federal agencies
undertake as a matter of routine, in order to prevent the harmful accumulation of monopsony power in labor markets by merger. The current
FTC Chairman, Joseph Simons, said as much in Congressional testimony in the fall of 2018, 99but to date there is no evidence that any such
investigation has taken place. In the recent merger [*64] approval for Staples's takeover of its supplier Essendant, the majority of the
commission claimed that the merger would have a pro-competitive impact on input markets. 100Specifically, if the combined firm reduced the
price it pays to manufacturer, it would in fact purchase more from them, not less, and hence that price reduction would not be an exercise of
buyer power (the majority's opinion says nothing about labor specifically as an input). But the idea that the volume of sales is dispositive about
the anti-competitive exercise of monopsony power is not correct. Wilmers finds evidence that dominant retailers and manufacturers impose
price reductions on the suppliers over whom they exercise market power, and those suppliers in turn pass those price reductions through to
their workers in the form of lower wages. 101That is an exercise of monopsony power, but it might well be accompanied by greater sales
volume from the supplier to the dominant customer.
Altogether, the
thesis of this paper is that there is no way to confront the economy's crisis of unequal
bargaining power without confronting the role that antitrust has played in getting us there. Antitrust is not
a substitute to any of the many other ways that policy ought to be extended to halt and reverse the economy-wide erosion of worker
bargaining power behind rising inequality and wage stagnation. But strengthening
it is a necessary condition for the
success of many of those alternatives, notably, labor law reform and collective bargaining on the part
of precariously employed gig economy workers.
Convergence ADV
Advantage two is CONVERGENCE
European precedents are trending toward an effective competition standard---its
objective is to include upstream and downstream effects on anti-competitive practices
Ariel Ezrachi 18, Slaughter and May Professor of Competition Law at the University of Oxford, The
Goals of EU Competition Law and the Digital Economy, BEUC, The European Consumer Organisation,
https://www.beuc.eu/publications/beuc-x-2018-
071_goals_of_eu_competition_law_and_digital_economy.pdf
2. Effective competition structure
In addition to the core focus on consumer welfare, European jurisprudence has

emphasised the goal of maintaining an
effective competitive structure. While the two goals often overlap, the focus on competition structure
provides a supplementary nuanced prism. The European Courts have long held that competition law ‘is
not only aimed at practices which may cause damage to consumers directly, but also at those which are
detrimental to them through their impact on an effective competition structure.’31 In T-Mobile, the Court of
Justice elaborated that European competition law ‘is designed to protect not only the immediate interests of individual competitors or
consumers but also to protect the structure of the market and thus competition as such.’32 The
Court added that a ‘concerted
practice may be regarded as having an anti-competitive object even though there is no direct connection
between that practice and consumer prices.33 Similarly, in her opinion in this case, Advocate General Kokott noted that the
protection of the structure of the market indirectly also protects consumers ‘[b]ecause where competition as such is damaged, disadvantages
for consumers are also to be feared.’34 Likewise, in
Glaxo Smith Kline Services Unlimited v Commission,35 the Court of Justice
held that Article 101 TFEU ‘aims to protect not only the interests of competitors or of consumers, but also
the structure of the market and, in so doing, competition as such.’36
In Konkurrensverket v TeliaSonera Sverige, the Court highlighted the significance of preventing ‘competition
from being distorted to the detriment of the public interest, individual undertakings and consumers, thereby ensuring
the well-being of the European Union.’37 In line with this approach, the General Court noted in Intel v Commission, that ‘the Commission
is not required to prove either direct damage to consumers or a causal link between such damage and
the practices at issue in the contested decision... [Article 102 TFEU] is aimed not only at practices which may cause damage to
consumers directly, but also at those which are detrimental to them through their impact on an effective competition structure.’38
The protection of an ‘effective competition structure’ provides for a wider prism than that reflected by
the consumer welfare benchmark. It draws attention to the competitive process as such and has led to
the condemnation of conducts that impair genuine undistorted competition.39
In the context of Article 102 TFEU, the protection of the effective competition structure has resulted in the imposition of a special responsibility
on dominant firms not to distort competition on the market,40 limit the buyer’s freedom as regards choice of sources of supply, or bar
competitors from access to the market.41 In the context of Article 101 TFEU, the protection of the effective competition supports the view that
‘in order to find that a concerted practice has an anti-competitive object, there does not need to be a direct link between that practice and
consumer prices.’42
Flowing from the protection of an ‘effective competition structure’ is the protection of input providers. Article 102 TFEU unambiguously
indicates that an unlawful abuse may result from, among other things, the direct or indirect imposition of unfair purchase prices, or other unfair
trading conditions. Similarly, Article 101(1) TFEU refers to the direct or indirect fixing of purchase or selling prices. In its decisional practice,43
the Commission noted that the purchase price is a fundamental aspect of competitive conduct.44 The focus on the supply side of the market
was also noted by Advocate General Jacobs in AOK Bundesverband v Ichthyol-Gesellschaft Cordes,45 where he pointed to the fact that buyer
cartels may ‘suppress the price of purchased products to below the competitive level, with negative consequences for the supply side of the
relevant market.’46 Overall, the explicit reference to purchase prices has served as a backbone to the assertion that European competition law
is also concerned with upstream effects.
In the context of the digital economy, the
wider prism offered by the protection of an ‘effective competition
structure’ has significant implications.
First, it
offers an independent mandate for intervention, detached from direct effect on consumers. It
enables the competition agency and courts to pre-empt by challenging actions that distort competition
on digital markets. This does not necessarily imply more aggressive enforcement, rather a wider, and
arguably more effective, consideration of effects on the digital landscape.
Second, is the focus on the effects online platforms, intermediaries and other economic actors have on the process of competition. Of particular
significance is the subrogation of the dominant firm’s economic self-interests to its responsibility not to distort competition. While it is widely
accepted that ‘not every exclusionary effect is necessarily detrimental to competition’,47 unjustified distortions may trigger intervention.
Third, the
focus on the competitive process draws attention to the potential use of networks, platforms
or data pools as possible barriers to entry or expansion or as a mechanism to raise rivals’ costs. The
increased significance of data in shaping markets and influencing their development, highlight it being a relevant parameter in the assessment
of markets and possible distortion of competition.48
Fourth, ‘effective competition structure’ draws attention to the consideration of choice in the digital
world. It may be used to appraise dominant players’ ability to increase friction and use manipulation to limit consumer choice while
maintaining a façade of abundance.49 Similarly, it provides a relevant intervention benchmarks when dominant firms limit access of
competitors through tying practices,50 or reduced interoperability.
Fifth, the
consideration of upstream effects could offer a fresh perspective on how bottleneck digital
players can impact the viability of input providers through practices that may negatively affect
upstream, but also downstream markets and thus end consumers.
Enforcement disputes will cause digital protectionism between the US and EU---
there’s a narrow window to converge before disputes escalate
Filippo Maria Lancieri 19, Doctor of Jurisprudence Candidate at University of Chicago Law School, M.S
in Economics from INSPER, Currently Postdoctoral Researcher at ETH Zurich, Digital Protectionism?
Antitrust, Data Protection, and the EU/US Transatlantic Rift, The Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (UK),
2019, 7(1): 27-53, Nexis Uni, Lexis Has a Display Issue: In the Original Article---Single Quote(s) Appears As
“′” Edited Here for Readability and Clarity*
IV. The Way Ahead: Convergence or Divergence?
So far, this article presented how the differences between the American and European approaches to data protection provide EU regulators
with motivation to strengthen antitrust enforcement in data markets. Moreover, it argued that once this process starts, the unique features of
European antitrust policy will prove a perfect incubator, so that antitrust cases against US tech companies for dominance violations should
grow. Americans do not share and may not understand neither the motivation nor the antitrust tools employed in the EU. 110 As
the
Atlantic divide on antitrust enforcement widens (and given that actual protectionist policies are on the
rise) 111 calls of digital protectionism should afloat. Tensions run both ways, as Europeans may also be
startled by American complaints against what they see as a regular application of the rule of law. 112
With a trade war between the EU and the US looming after a series of trade sanctions, 113 increased strains between two
of the world’s leading trade and security partners can do little good. 114 The digital economy is a
sensitive area and the EU/US safe harbour for data transfer is proof of the damage that may arise from
disputes. The first Safe Harbor came after a major trade conflict between the EU and the US over personal data. 115 By striking it down, EU
Courts’ placed thousands of American and European companies in disarray, 116 reason why business leaders in both jurisdictions welcomed the
swift conclusion of the Privacy Shield. 117 The challenge remains, however, on whether it is desirable or possible to bridge
such significant cultural differences, or at least develop clear mechanisms that prevents tensions arising from pure
misunderstanding.
This remains a contingent question. On one side, convergence may never be necessary. It is perfectly reasonable and may even be optimal that
different legal systems will provide different solutions to challenges of a new internet era, forcing agents to adapt to the norms of a given
jurisdiction. 118 Lack of convergence is burdensome and may increase the cost of doing business across the
Atlantic, 119 but the so far successful implementation of the ‘right to be forgotten’ experience in Europe demonstrates that both markets
are large enough to justify companies adopting different solutions. The risk is that shifts in market behaviour may lead to
the ‘Brussels’ effect’ and the export of stricter standards, 120 something that may trigger unpredictable
reactions by US authorities facing loss of sovereignty.
On the other, the safe harbour demonstrates how convergence is possible if parties move to bridge
differences. As there is more to explore from an academic perspective in this second scenario, this section will focus on that. Bringing
together such disparate regimes will require both political motivation and a coherent framework. This part argues that: (i) convergence
efforts will require a balancing of the role that economics plays in antitrust enforcement on internet markets
on both sides of the Atlantic; and (ii) that recent EU reforms open a window of opportunity for this to happen. In
addition, it presents data portability as a mitigating measure that companies may explore to decrease tensions while and if converge does not
take place.
Digital protectionism eliminates US-EU tech coop---that allows China to fill in toward
an authoritarian internet model
Cosmina Moghior 21, Denton Fellow with the Transatlantic Leadership program at the Center for
European Policy Analysis, Protectionism Threatens To Torpedo The Transatlantic Technology Alliance,
CEPA, https://cepa.org/protectionism-threatens-to-torpedo-the-transatlantic-technology-alliance/
On a broad level, the U.S. and Europe agree on the need for new regulations to limit dangers from the
authoritarian digital model. They want to reign in tech monopolies. They want to protect privacy. They want to combat
disinformation that threatens democracy.
On a practical level, both

favors strengthened export controls of dangerous technology. A good example of
cooperation concerns semiconductors . While the US is leading in most stages of the semiconductor supply chain, the Dutch
company ASML dominates lithography equipment production. Even under President Trump, the Dutch government agreed to stop ASML from
selling its most advanced machines to China.
Unfortunately, though, protectionism threatens to undermine future progress. The Biden Administration’s
massive infrastructure plan and new “Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force” aim to keep innovation and production of leading-edge technology
at home, making the U.S. a technological leader. Biden’s Buy America Executive Order (EO) encourages domestic procurement of “goods,
products, materials, and services from sources that help the American businesses compete in strategic industries and help America’s workers
thrive”. The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council is developing recommendations to extend requirements to information technology.
The U.S. is pouring public money into strategic digital industries. In a rare bipartisan vote, Congress approved $52 billion in subsidies in June for
chip research and manufacturing. States from Wisconsin, Texas, and Nevada are showering tax benefits on digital tech giants including Amazon,
Apple, and Google to build factories and data centers.
Europe similarly is determined to build its own tech capacities. It promotes the concept of digital sovereignty aimed at providing the continent
the capacity to make “autonomous technological choices.” Several projects promote domestic production of critical technologies ranging from
next-generation mobile phone production to quantum computing. Public funds already are being spent on the
European cloud computing project GAIA-X aims to break the U.S. stranglehold on cloud computing. While Europe insists that its actions are not
protectionist, designed instead to promote and safeguard European values, GAIA-X aims to ensure data protection and limit access of U.S.
intelligence to European data. U.S. tech giants including Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have been invited to join, but are banned from joining
the board.
The U.S. is home to the world’s largest Internet companies and fears that European regulatory
measures will discriminate against them. Plans for a European “digital” tax – put on hold to secure a global corporate tax
reform – would disproportionately impact American companies that provide digital services in Europe. A separate Digital Markets Act proposal
under consideration at the European Parliament addresses unfair practices of the so-called “gatekeepers,” that operate “core platform
services.” Most of the targeted companies will likely be American, beginning with giants Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon.
Europe and the U.S. need to step back from pursuing their
protectionist instincts, which threatens to allow China’s
increasing inroads into the digital market. Beijing is making investments on all continents on projects
ranging from education to critical infrastructure. Many countries are turning to China for support and
guidance on technological development while the U.S. and the EU focus on their domestic anxieties and
ambitions.
A transatlantic tech alliance could provide the blueprint for offering a viable alternative to Chinese
inroads in the developing world. Europe and the U.S. need to coordinate against the export of
authoritarian practices on the Internet. They can only do this by dropping the push for Buy American
and European Digital Sovereignty.
Collapses internet openness---extinction

Lee C. Bollinger 13, President of Columbia University in New York City and a Member of the Faculty of
the Law School, Graduate of the University of Oregon and Columbia Law School, and Julius
Genachowski, Former FCC Chair, JD from Harvard Law School, Managing Director at The Carlyle Group,
“The Plot to Block Internet Freedom”, Foreign Policy, 4/16/2013,
https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/16/the-plot-to-block-internet-freedom/
The Internet has created an extraordinary new democratic forum for people around the world to
express their opinions. It is revolutionizing global access to information: Today, more than 1 billion people
worldwide have access to the Internet, and at current growth rates, 5 billion people — about 70 percent of the world’s population
— will be connected in five years .
But this growth trajectory is not inevitable, and threats are mounting to the global spread of an open and
truly "worldwide" web. The expansion of the open Internet must be allowed to continue: The mobile
and social media revolutions are critical not only for democratic institutions’ ability to solve the
collective problems of a shrinking world, but also to a dynamic and innovative global economy that
depends on financial transparency and the free flow of information.
The threats to the open Internet were on stark display at last December’s World Conference on International
Telecommunications in Dubai, where the United States fought attempts by a number of countries — including Russia, China, and
Saudi Arabia — to give a U.N. organization, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), new regulatory authority over
the Internet. Ultimately, over the objection of the United States and many others, 89 countries voted to approve a treaty that could
strengthen the power of governments to control online content and deter broadband deployment.
In Dubai, two deeply worrisome trends came to a head.
First, we see that the Arab Spring and similar events have awakened nondemocratic governments to the danger that the Internet poses to their
regimes. In Dubai, they
pushed for a treaty that would give the ITU’s imprimatur to governments’ blocking or favoring of online
content under the guise of preventing spam and increasing network security. Authoritarian countries’
real goal is to legitimize content regulation, opening the door for governments to block any content
they do not like, such as political speech.
Second, the basic commercial model underlying the open Internet is also under threat. In particular, some proposals, like the one made last
year by major European network operators, would change the ground rules for payments for transferring Internet content. One species of
these proposals is called "sender pays" or "sending party pays." Since the beginning of the Internet, content creators — individuals, news
outlets, search engines, social media sites — have been able to make their content available to Internet users without paying a fee to Internet
service providers. A sender-pays rule would change that, empowering governments to require Internet content creators to pay a fee to connect
with an end user in that country.
Sender pays may look merely like a commercial issue, a different way to divide the pie. And proponents of sender pays and similar changes
claim they would benefit Internet deployment and Internet users. But the opposite is true: If a country imposed a payment requirement,
content creators would be less likely to serve that country. The loss of content would make the Internet less attractive and would lessen
demand for the deployment of Internet infrastructure in that country.
Repeat the process in a few more countries, and the growth of global connectivity — as well as its attendant
benefits for democracy — would slow dramatically. So too would the benefits accruing to the global
economy. Without continuing improvements in transparency and information sharing, the innovation
that springs from new commercial ideas and creative breakthroughs is sure to be severely inhibited.
To their credit, American Internet service providers have joined with the broader U.S. technology industry, civil society, and others in opposing
these changes. Together, we were
able to win the battle in Dubai over sender pays, but we have not yet won the war.
Issues affecting global Internet openness, broadband deployment, and free speech will return in upcoming
international forums, including an important meeting in Geneva in May, the World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum.
The massive investment in wired and wireless broadband infrastructure in the United States demonstrates that preserving an open Internet is
completely compatible with broadband deployment. According to a recent UBS report, annual wireless capital investment in the United States
increased 40 percent from 2009 to 2012, while investment in the rest of the world has barely inched upward. And according to the Information
Technology and Innovation Foundation, more fiber-optic cable was laid in the United States in 2011 and 2012 than in any year since 2000, and
15 percent more than in Europe.
All Internet users lose something when some countries are cut off from the World Wide Web. Each person who is
unable to connect to the Internet diminishes our own access to information. We become less able to
understand the world and formulate policies to respond to our shrinking planet. Conversely, we gain a
richer understanding of global events as more people connect around the world, and those societies nurturing nascent democracy movements
become more familiar with America’s traditions of free speech and pluralism.
That’s why we believe that the

Internet should remain free of gatekeepers and that no entity — public or private —
should be able to pick and choose the information web users can receive. That is a principle the United States adopted in
the Federal Communications Commission’s 2010 Open Internet Order. And it’s why we are deeply concerned about arguments by some in the
United States that broadband providers should be able to block, edit, or favor Internet traffic that travels over their networks, or adopt
economic models similar to international sender pays.
We must preserve the Internet as the most open and robust platform for the free exchange of information ever devised. Keeping the
Internet open is perhaps the most important free speech issue of our time.
It causes surveillance that chills innovation---extinction

Julian Cribb 19, Principal of Julian Cribb & Associates, Founding Editor of ScienceAlert, Author,
Journalist, Editor and Science Communicator, “6 - Food as an Existential Risk,” 10/03/2019, Food or War,
1st ed., Cambridge University Press. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1017/9781108690126
– The advent of quantum computers and blockchain herald an age in which it will be possible to spy on every person
on the planet for the whole of their lives, by mining the data that already exists in their bank accounts,
mobile phones and computers, medical records, CCTV, employment history, etc. In the wrong hands, this could be used to
influence or compel people to vote for dictators. In terms of human survival, it could be used to
enforce beliefs – like climate denial – which threaten the very existence of humanity.
– Deliberate misuse and/or accidental disasters created by biotechnology and nanotechnology, such as the manufacture of
uncontrollable new lifeforms which prove dangerous, or genetically altered humans.
The essential point is that there is no public or ethical oversight of these ultra-powerful technologies, which are
open to exploitation by anyone with the resources and who can afford the expertise.
They are emerging and evolving far faster than legislators or regulators can keep up. Without strong public oversight, they can
very easily be used to enslave humanity, silence dissidents or to control or destroy by various means those whom their overseers want
controlled or destroyed.
The connection between these supertechnologies and twentyfirst-century warfare is evident. Most are being developed as military
technologies, not only by democracies where there is little or no public scrutiny, but also by dictatorships and corporations where there is no
public oversight at all. Links with food include the deployment of artificial intelligence for managing corporate super-farms (which may or may
not be sustainable), the use of robot swarms and cyber warfare to attack the food systems of potential enemies, and the
use of
universal surveillance to silence or deter people who wish to produce food sustainably and who find
themselves opposed to the dominance of oil and coal companies, agribusiness corporates, their puppet
governments and other wielders of power.
The over-arching issue is that use of universal spying systems to subordinate and censor the whole society
could very easily silence the warning voices who presently speak out about risks to our future. Such a
development would increase the likelihood of human extinction.
EU and US big data approaches are out of sync because of Chicago School
jurisprudence---the plan harmonizes EU-US policy
Eleanor Fox 19, Walter J. Derenberg Professor of Trade Regulation at New York University School of
Law, “Platforms, Power, and the Antitrust Challenge: A Modest Proposal to Narrow the U.S.- Europe
Divide,” Nebraska Law Review, Vol. 98, Issue 2, Article 4, pp. 297-318,
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/nlr/vol98/iss2/4
B. Europe
Meanwhile in Europe, at the end of World War II, a core of European nations resolved to create a new structure of governance so as never to
have a war again. Six nations, led by Germany, France, and Italy, formed the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951–1952 and then the
European Economic Community in 1957–1958. This visionary project depended upon the realization of community—a single European market.
As Montesquieu said, “people who trade together tend not to fight.”12 They come to respect one another, and hatreds dissolve. Free trade and
free movement in the internal market was at the heart of the European conception. That meant nations’ border-barriers had to fall. As the
founders presciently anticipated, once tariffs and quotas were abolished, private firms would re-erect them. Moreover, the member nations
had nurtured their own national champions, typically state-owned enterprises, entrenching nationalistic barriers. Thus, it was necessary to
embed antitrust in the Treaty13 itself, to prevent private power and privileged enterprises from defeating the project for economic community.
As a result, the Treaty (now, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union) contains Article 101, which prohibits anticompetitive
agreements, and Article 102, which prohibits abuses of a dominant position,14 as well as other integral provisions to control public and private
economic power.
Like the U.S., the EU went through two important phases with regard to the question: When is single-firm conduct anticompetitive? In the first
stage, EU law was formalistic. The law was aggressive against dominant-firm conduct that excluded rival firms. It contained a broad
presumption against exclusive contracts by dominant firms. The second phase came in the 1990s, and, even more dramatically, in the first
decade of the new millennium. This was epitomized by the European Commission’s 2009 guidance paper on dominant firm conduct.15 In this
second phase and in the guidance paper, the European Commission adopted, and the courts followed, a more economic approach.16 While
incorporating economic analysis into the law, Europe retained certain guiding principles and approaches reflecting the place of antitrust in the
Treaty. These approaches include that EU law is about community and integration. EU competition law is sympathetic with EU internal market
free-movement law, which stresses the importance of free movement of goods, services and people across Member State lines. Likewise, EU
law is antagonistic to Member State restraints and the privileges states grant to favored firms. Such restraints and privileges are distortions of
competition. Both aspects—respect for free movement and antagonism to state restraints—are imported into EU competition law and
specifically into abuse of dominance law. EU competition law stresses market access and the right of firms to contest markets on the merits. It
is sympathetic to firms’ access to networks.17 It is hostile to dominant firms’ use of leverage to take advantages for themselves at the expense
of competitors, thereby unleveling the playing field. EU competition law does not aim to protect inefficient competitors, but rather its
precedents forge a clearer path for firms to access markets on their merits, free from obstructions by dominant firms. Still, detractors
(including many in the U.S. antitrust community) contend that the EU excessively enforces its antitrust
law against dominant firms (often American ones) and insist that the EU approach does protect
competitors at the expense of consumers.
C. Presumptions and Divergences
EU competition law adopted its more economic approach nearly two decades ago. However, it never
adopted the “Chicago School” premises. It does not assume markets work well. It does not admonish us to
trust the market—especially not when the market is concentrated and dominated by a single firm. It does not
presume that antitrust intervention is likely to mess up the market and chill competition and innovation. Its
teaching implies a belief that lowering barriers to entry and keeping a clear path for challengers is likely to make the
market more dynamic and thus serve consumers better. When dealing with innovation incentives, U.S. cases are likely to
assume that antitrust action against a dominant firm will chill the firm’s incentives to invent,18 while EU
law is more likely to find that the dominant firm’s challenged conduct will chill the outsiders’ incentives to
invent. EU cases have documented this lost innovation.19 U.S. competition law abhors duties of dominant
firms to deal with competitors, calling such duties “forced sharing” and undermining incentives to
invent.20 EU law applies a contrary principle: dominant firms, especially firms with power in one market that compete in
an adjacent market, have a special responsibility not to impair rivals’ competition on the merits .21
Both jurisdictions aim to preserve and facilitate sustainable low pricing even if it displaces firms that cannot keep up with the competition.
U.S. law, however, makes it harder than EU law to successfully challenge below-cost pricing. U.S. law
requires the plaintiff to prove a probable recoupment scenario—that is, after the predatory siege,
defendant must be likely to recover its losses by charging monopoly prices high enough and long enough.22 EU
law does not require proof of probable recoupment.23 It is enough that the predator thought the
scheme was worth it. Because of the strict U.S. requirements, predatory pricing violations are virtually
never proved under U.S. law.
Apart from these different presumptions and principles, much of the law governing unilateral conduct is very similar on both sides of the ocean.
But thedifferent presumptions and principles have resulted in diametrically different results on nearly
identical facts in key cases, especially when the conduct challenged is a refusal to deal with competitors or customers.24 The
differences reveal themselves in assessing the conduct of the big data platforms, as the Article shows below.
III. IMPLICATIONS FOR HIGH TECH, BIG DATA
A handful of high tech giants dominate markets. The firms were started from scratch by entrepreneurs with great ideas, and they
attract millions of users every day. They are networks and platforms, have economies of scale, and feature network effects and winner-takeall
markets. On the one hand, the network effects please users (who get more “friends” or suppliers or buyers), but on the other hand, they create
uncommonly high barriers to entry and reinforce their market power. The firms offer their products “free” on one side of the market (but users
give up their data); on the other side, they make huge revenues from advertising, including by selling the data of their users. The high tech firms
operate with low-price models, not the high prices that traditionally attract antitrust attention. Some have been exposed for serious misuses or
lax protection of data as well as for acquiring personal data from third party sources without permission. Some have waged media campaigns of
false information against critics. They offer services in competition with the firms they host on their platforms, and they prefer their own
products and demote their rivals, undermine creative start-ups by appropriating their ideas, mine the data of the firms they host to preempt
the next big thing, snap up the startups that are potential competitive threats, and breach privacy rights of the platform’s users. Much of this
conduct may violate consumer protection and privacy protection laws. A
question is whether the firms are also violating the
competition laws. Does the answer depend on whether the laws are those of the U.S. or those of the EU
(and the many jurisdictions that follow EU law) ? It might.
The conduct we shall examine poses challenging questions under Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits
monopolization. The first step of analysis is defining the market, and the exercise of market definition is difficult.25 The second step is
proof of monopoly power. Monopoly power is traditionally defined as the power to raise price above a competitive price and reduce output for
a significant time.26 In platform markets, this proof may not be possible. The third step is proof of conduct that is anticompetitive. The court
may require the plaintiff to establish that the conduct lowers output and raises prices27 by
anticompetitive means. This may not be possible. The platforms are accumulating and using new forms of power. The big
tech abuses do not fit neatly into the “Chicago School” requirements.
Under EU competition law, the case for abuse of dominance is easier to make. EU law is less
demanding of proof of definition of the market. Moreover, a firm might hold a dominant position even
when it does not have monopoly power under the neoclassical economists’ definition. Status as a “gatekeeper” (power
over a dominant platform) might suffice.28 A firm might abuse its dominance when it uses its power in one market to get significant
competitive advantages in an adjacent market and does so by conduct that blocks rivals’ access and has no competitive merit,29 even if it does
not get market power in the second market.
These qualities of EU law make it a more flexible tool than the Sherman Act to deal with the new
problems posed by high tech/big data. Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which prohibits unfair methods of
competition, also has this flexibility, at least in theory.30
IV. THREE EXAMPLES OF ALLEGED PLATFORM ABUSE
A. Google/Comparative Shopping
1. EU Law
In the Google/Comparative Shopping case, the European Commission condemned Google , as the dominant
search engine, for demoting its rivals and preferring itself on its platform. Here are the salient facts it found:
Google held more than 90% of the general search market in Europe. It launched comparison shopping services. Google was not the first to offer
comparative shopping services on its platform; others preceded it. Google entered this market in 2004 with a product called Froogle. But
Froogle was not a good product. When Google Search treated Froogle neutrally with its rivals, Froogle performed poorly. This means, under
neutral treatment, Froogle did not rank high on the responses to consumer search queries; it was relegated to back pages where it did not get
many clicks—and clicks are the way products generate revenues through advertising. In 2008, Google changed its strategy fundamentally to
automatically give a prominent place to Google’s product (which was renamed and revamped as Google Shopping). Thereafter, Google
Shopping appeared at or near the top of search results for comparative shopping services, and it began to appear with rich graphical features.
Google Search demoted rivals’ services. Even the services of rivals that were most highly ranked by the original neutral algorithm began to
appear on average only on page 4. Users seldom access, much less click on, links on page 4. (The top search result on the computer page
receives about 35% of the clicks; page 1 results receive about 95%; the first result on page 2 receives about 1%.) As a result of Google Search’s
software program change, traffic on Google Shopping increased substantially and traffic on the rivals, in spite of their merit, decreased
substantially. While the Commission did not question Google’s choice to display rich graphic features for the Google service at the top of the
page of search results, the Commission did question the fact that rivals could not get the same advantage. As a result of its strategy, Google
Shopping increased its share in all thirteen markets in the European Economic Area, in many by a large amount.
Summarizing the changes caused by the demotions, the Commission said:
• “Since the beginning of each abuse, Google’s comparison shopping service has increased its traffic 45-fold in the United Kingdom, 35-fold in
Germany, 19-fold in France, 29-fold in the Netherlands, 17-fold in Spain and 14-fold in Italy.”
• “Following the demotions applied by Google, traffic to rival comparison shopping services on the other hand dropped significantly. For
example, the Commission found specific evidence of sudden drops of traffic to certain rival websites of 85% in the United Kingdom, up to 92%
in Germany and 80% in France. These sudden drops could also not be explained by other factors. Some competitors have adapted and managed
to recover some traffic but never in full.”31
The Commission concluded that Google abused its dominance by using its leverage in search to give its
own comparative shopping service a significant advantage. The Commission found that Google had no objective
justification for this conduct. It found that Google’s change to prefer its own comparative shopping service was not a product improvement.
Google had claimed as an improvement its addition of rich format on top of the results presented for the Google Shopping entry, but the
Commission concluded that this addition could not be counted as an improvement because Google gave the embellishment to its product
alone.
The Commission required Google to treat its own service equally with rivals’ services. As usual, it required the
undertaking to submit a plan to achieve compliance with the decision. As well, the Commission fined Google 2.42 million
euros.
The case is on appeal to the European General Court. It will be judged in view of the Court of Justice’s case law including the recent Intel
judgment,32 which emphasizes competitive effects. Whether a dominant firm’s use of leverage to shift significant market share to itself,
seriously narrowing market opportunities for competitors, violates EU competition norms will be decided on appeal.33
2. U.S. Law
How would the Google/Comparative Shopping facts be analyzed under Section 2 of the Sherman Act? The
jurisprudence suggests several good arguments for Google. First, market definition and market power
would be contested matters. Google asserts that vertical searches are good alternatives to general search,
enlarging the market so as to minimize Google’s monopoly share of general search. Enlarging the market to
include advertising (the paid side of the market) would likewise expand proof problems, even though Google has been
labeled as dominant in online advertising with a 37% share. Second, whatever the market, Google’s market power will be
seriously contested, with Google insisting that it cannot and does not raise prices, reduce output, or lower
quality. Third, in a similar comparative shopping case, it would be difficult for a U.S. court to find an anticompetitive abuse under Section 2
of the Sherman Act. Google is not an essential facility under U.S. law. It has no antitrust duty to deal fairly, let
alone to deal at all, with firms that want to use its platform , except in rare circumstances.34 Moreover, it may be unlikely
that, by reason of its demoting strategy, it acquired market power in the adjacent market (comparative shopping web services). It may be
doubtful that it has power to limit output either in general search or in comparative shopping web services. As a result of the conduct,
consumers/ users are not confronted with a price rise, even though they do suffer a non-quantifiable
loss by being given second-best information in answer to their queries, loss of the benefits of the
improved performance that stronger head-on competition could bring, and loss of access to innovative
products squeezed out by the demotions. (Whether the impugned conduct elevates prices charged to advertisers remains to be
explored.)35 The losses, including chilling incentives of the demoted rivals, is speculative and, even if true, Google would urge that
the antitrust enforcement itself chills Google’s incentives to deliver innovative products. U.S. law is
sympathetic to the assumption that it does.36
The facts of Google/Comparative Shopping find parallels across the GAFA platforms. The abuse problem is probably not one of output
limitation. The problem is the distortion of the market so that the firm with power, leverage and a conflict of interests succeeds for reasons
other than its merits, and the meritorious competition of rivals is suppressed.
What might the AmEx case add to the analysis? AmEx

could open the door to full two-sided-market analysis,
minimizing the market power and the antitrust harm.37 AmEx makes it hard to infer market power from
exclusionary effects. AmEx puts a set of incumbent-preferring arguments into the mouth of Google.38
We suggest below that the Federal Trade Commission, enforcing Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (which prohibits unfair
methods of competition), could overcome the above obstacles more easily than could a court under Section 2 of the Sherman Act.
B. Facebook–Abuse of Data
1. German Law
On February 7, 2019, the

German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) held that Facebook has violated the German abuse of
dominance law by gathering personal data from sources beyond Facebook (e.g., every time the user clicks on
“like”) without the users’ knowledge or permission , and using the data to compile a unique database on each user, enabling
Facebook to offer advertisers distinctly targeted advertising and thus to enhance its revenues. The FCO
characterized the violation as an exploitative one—Facebook exploited users, rather than excluded rivals. The appellate court, however, has
suspended the FCO’s order pending appeal, after expressing doubts about the legal basis for the decision.39 The following are some of the
findings and analysis, as summarized by the FCO.40
Market, Market Power, and Dominance
Facebook is the largest social network in the world. It holds a dominant position in the German market for social networks, having more than a
90% market share. It has 2.3 billion active users worldwide, with 1.5 billion using Facebook daily. Facebook users in Germany number some 323
million monthly and 23 million daily. As to competition in Germany, Facebook faces only some small German providers, and their suitability as
an alternative social network is limited in view of Facebook’s economies of scale and network effects.
The FCO expressly based the assessment of market power on more than market share. It referenced recent amendments to the German
Competition Act to include as indicia of market power: “competitively relevant data, economies of scale based on network effects, the
behaviour of users who can use several different services or only one service and the power of innovation-driven competitive pressure . . . .”41
Identity-based direct network effects were deemed an important factor in assessing Facebook’s market power. Also important were indirect
network effects stemming from advertiser-financed services: the larger the user base, the more audience for ads and the more profits to
advertisers. Economies of scale that produce cost-savings “provide Facebook with a far greater scope for strategic decisions than its
competitors have.”42 Facebook invoked multi-homing as a countervailing force, but the FCO found the contention not established. Moreover,
the FCO found: “Facebook has superior access to competition-relevant data, in particular the personal data of its users. As social networks are
data-driven products, access to such data is an essential factor for competition in the market.”43 Lack of access to data “can be an additional
barrier to market entry.”44
The Harm to Competition
The FCO found that Facebook imposes exploitative business terms. “The damage for the users lies in loss of control: They are no longer able to
control how their personal data are used. They cannot perceive which data from which sources are combined for which purposes . . . .”45
Facebook “violates the constitutionally protected right to informational self-determination.”46 Further competitive harm is caused to
advertising customers, who are faced with a dominant supplier of advertising space in social networks.
In finding an exploitative abuse, the FCO drew on contract principles and data protection principles, importing their values into antitrust
analysis. Reference to the General Data Protection Regulation, the FCO said, helped to confirm Facebook’s lack of justification for exploiting
users’ data. The FCO recognized Facebook’s legitimate interests in processing the data, but found that the legitimate interests did not outweigh
the harm to users’ interests.
Facebook’s Conduct Poses a Competition Problem
The FCO said that access to market data is essential to the market position of social network companies. “Access to data, above all in the case
of online platforms and networks,”47 is specified as a relevant factor for dominance by the German Competition Act. “Monitoring the data
processing activities of dominant companies is therefore an essential task of a competition authority, which cannot be fulfilled by data
protection officers.”48
Remedy
The FCO imposed no fine. Its aim was to change behavior. Facebook was required to submit a plan for compliance.
***
The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy is further studying digital platforms and abuse of market power to determine
whether modernization of the law is necessary. An expert committee issued a report,49 and a follow-up committee is tasked to suggest means
to implement the initial report.
European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, while studying the report, noted “the importance of monitoring data monopolies
and internet gatekeepers that can choke off data access to rivals.”50 Moreover, the Directorate-General for Competition commissioned its own
report.51 Meanwhile, a new Commission has been constituted. Vestager has not only been reappointed the Competition Commissioner, she
has been appointed Executive Vice President for the EU’s digital policy.
2. U.S. Law
Abuse in the collection and use of data, especially by the big data companies, is a big concern in the world. The abuses and their remedies are
being studied in many jurisdictions in addition to Germany and the EU, including Australia, Japan and the UK.
Section 2 of the Sherman Act offers no parallel application to the German case. In the United States, a
plaintiff would face difficulties at the outset in defining the market and proving monopoly power. But
more basically, the claim of violation by abuse of data collecting, including from third party sites, and
collecting and using the data surreptitiously and deceitfully, does not fit with the U.S. antitrust laws.
The Sherman Act imposes no special responsibility, not even on a monopoly firm, to have regard for rivals or users.
The right to refuse to deal (or to deal on chosen terms) is strong. Moreover, the German Facebook violation is an exploitative
violation, not an exclusionary one, and Section 2 does not prohibit exploitative behavior (e.g., excessive prices).52 The German Facebook
proceeding did not include exclusionary practices. Such practices, alleged elsewhere, include Facebook’s cutting off user access to an
improvement by Vine, a videocreating and sharing platform, apparently because Facebook took the Vine product to be a competitive threat to
it.53
Might lessons from AmEx play a role in the analysis? Let us postulate that consumers, including business users, are harmed on one side of the
market. Their valuable data is coerced from them, aggregated from third party sources, and monetized lucratively. The social network charges
zero (plus the data) to users and sells curated space to advertisers, making possible the zero user-charge. AmEx
and other decisions
would counsel to count positively Facebook’s efficiencies in data use and improvement of its services
though collection and use of its data trove.
The FCO did consider the advertiser side of the market. It concluded that Facebook exploited advertisers as well as users. It did take note of
efficiency benefits through increased accuracy of advertisers in targeting likely buyers, and benefits of the network’s declining marginal costs,
but it counted those advantages as contributors to Facebook’s power, not as contributors to the public’s or consumers’ welfare. The FCO
determined that the users’ interests outweighed Facebook’s interests. It so concluded not because, if monetized, the Euro-amount of the gains
to Facebook was less than the Euro-amount of the losses to users, but on quasi-constitutional grounds: people have a right to control their data
and to know how it is going to be used; it was wrong for a dominant firm to coerce users to give up their data rights if they were to use
Facebook’s service at all.
While Section 2 of the Sherman Act has strict limits, Section 5 of the FTC Act is a more flexible vehicle. The FTC is not bound to ignore a problem
just because Facebook’s conduct may be exploitative rather than exclusionary or just because it interfaces with data privacy. Moreover, the FTC
has consumer protection powers and Facebook’s behavior raises serious consumer protection concerns. Indeed, the FTC already has a file on
Facebook and has just penalized Facebook $5 billion for sharing with Cambridge Analytica, a political consultant to then-candidate Trump, data
of 87 million Facebook users, which it used to compile voter profiles.54 If a data privacy problem is mixed with a consumer protection problem
and possibly an antitrust problem (e.g., an abusive cut-off of access, or an anticompetitive acquisition), the FTC is well placed to consider the
abuses together for whatever synergies may be mined. If vested with the multi-faceted matter, the FTC could consider formulating some rules
and controlling principles, such as banning self-dealing and disallowing efficiency as a defense to coercion and deception.
C. Start-Ups: Nipping Competition in the Bud
Major platforms such as Facebook, through their massive data troves collected in part from the targets
themselves, are well positioned to identify the promising start-ups that pose the greatest competitive
threats to the platform, and buy them up or stamp them out . Because the start-ups typically lack significant revenues,
the acquisition may be below the turnover thresholds required for premerger filing in some jurisdictions. Moreover, any single such acquisition
may just be ignored as too insignificant.
Competition authorities in several jurisdictions are considering the need to be tougher on dominant
platforms’ systematically buying their most promising and threatening would-be rivals. Germany has revised its
merger control thresholds to add a value-of-the-transaction test and to include debt as part of value,
so that these rising-star start-ups do not escape assessment.55 The most commonly cited exam ples of allegedly
anticompetitive “snap-ups” is Facebook’s acquisitions of Instagram and of WhatsApp, both of which platforms provide important alternatives
for social network users seeking a model friendlier to younger users.
The future of such start-ups may be highly speculative at the time of acquisition. But what if, as it has been alleged, the dominant platform
either buys up or stamps out all potentially threatening startups to preserve its dominance? The tale of Snapchat may be a cautionary one.
Facebook pursued Snapchat. Snapchat said no. Then Facebook appropriated Snapchat’s signature innovation: stories—a photo and video post-
platform. The story is told in Facebook is Killing Snapchat with the Format It Created.56
The big data strategies are reminiscent of tales of the Standard Oil Trust. By some reckoning the conduct may be
called efficient. So was Standard Oil’s conduct, as insisted by historian John S. McGee.57 But the efficiencies of Standard Oil’s strategies did not
prevent the giant predatory trust from being Exhibit A to the very enactment of the Sherman Act and did not dissuade the Supreme Court from
breaking it up.58
There are several big challenges to thwarting the so-called “killer acquisitions.” One is to be able to identify the anticompetitive qualities of the
acquisition at the time of vetting. The second is this: suppose the acquisitions are indeed harmful to competition today. It
is possible
under existing U.S. antitrust law, although not common, to obtain divestiture of assets whose
acquisition turned out to be anticompetitive. The challenge , however, is to prove both that the consolidation
is on balance anticompetitive (in spite of efficiency aspects such as better use of data), and that divestiture will noticeably produce
competition and make consumers/users better off. Third, the possibility of sale to the dominant platform has been an
incentive for start-ups to start up in the first place. One would want to be able to predict that the loss of this route to
“success” would not cause more harm than good.
V. PROPOSALS
The “do nothing” and the “break them up” approaches are extreme policy approaches that at the one end would leave real competition
problems unaddressed and at the other would apply blunt instruments to cure huge state-of-the-world dilemmas that pose daunting
implementation problems and are sure to leave unfilled expectations in their wake.
There are three reasons why the

United States might wish to take Europe’s big data initiatives more seriously. First,
European competition law is the law in a substantial part of the world. If the U.S. wants to be relevant
in international transactions, it must appreciate European perspectives. Second, top down regulation is a possible
substitute for antitrust. If the antitrust agencies ignore abuses of economic power that people care about, more intrusive regulation is likely to
fill the gap. European competition policy gives some insight into how antitrust, complemented with consumer
protection and privacy protection, can
be an alternative to more intrusive regulation.59 Third, Europe may be right in some
not insignificant ways.
We focus on the third point. Europe may be right. We address the skeptics who insist that there is no competition problem and that, if there is,
it cannot be solved except by remedies that are worse than the disease. Is there a competition problem? Let us return to the three problems
analyzed: (1) the Google/Comparative Shopping problem; (2) the German Facebook problem; and (3) acquisitions by dominant platforms of
potentially threatening start-ups. Starting with the last, it is now recognized that the acquisitions of nascant competitors might be
anticompetitive. If so, they are fair game for divestiture—if divestiture will indeed produce the desired competition. Going forward, these
acquisitions should be vetted more seriously.
There is a philosophical divide between those who want to give more breathing space to even dominant
platforms to buy promising start-ups whose futures are speculative, and those who are alarmed that the platforms are
snapping up all threatening startups and are thereby insulating themselves from the competitive forces
that could make them accountable.60 These are the usual philosophical tugs and play out with little fanfare (or get submerged) in
the course of technocratic merger review.
The middle category—the German Facebook case—is largely a problem of deception, privacy invasion, and exploitation of people who provide
their data. While the German FCO was able to blend the several disciplines, the underlying problem treated in the German Facebook case is not
likely to be seen as an antitrust problem in the United States.
We come, then, to category number 1: gatekeepers abuse the users of their platforms who compete with them, systematically downgrading
the rivals, sabotaging their inventions, and appropriating their ideas to outcompete them. How to define the market, how to assess market
power, how to identify an abuse as anticompetitive, and how to devise a remedy are all contested issues. In part, the divide is ideological. Do
we stress that Google (for example) created its platform, conclude that it should be able to use it as it likes, and assume that legal duties will
handicap invention? Or do we highlight Google’s conflict of interests and observe that downgrading often-better rivals is inefficient as well as
unfair? Do we emphasize that clogging the path to market interferes with the competition process, chills the incentives of the platform users,
and defeats expectations of consumers, who expect best answers to their queries? In this late day of the political economy debate, the divide
will not be closed by evidence or economics. The popular sentiment, however, tends to coincide with the concerns about power, its abuse, and
the unaccountability of the dominant platforms.61
Here are six suggestions for U.S. law, based on this author’s perception that the big data antitrust abuses are real and pressing:
1. Recognize that the dominant big data platforms have economic power sufficient to cause
competitive harms. When conduct of a dominant platform has demonstrable anticompetitive qualities, we
should simplify the proofs of power and effects and get quickly to the question of procompetitive justifications.62
Anticompetitive qualities include clauses and conduct to frustrate multi-homing, interoperability, and data portability. If the platform engages
in conduct to raise rivals’ costs, to make alternatives infeasible, or to marginalize rivals, the burden should shift; and if defendants offer no
credible procompetitive explanation or justification, the conduct should be prohibited. The Federal Trade Commission is well situated to do this
job.63
2. Much conduct is likely to require deeper study of pros and cons. The FTC should examine the practices, listen to the justifications, and judge
the conduct. It should not be required to prove that the platform’s conduct will lessen output in the relevant market as a condition precedent
to finding an offense. Output limitation is not the problem. To clarify the law, the FTC might write rules under its rule-making authority.
3. In the case of a dominant platform that also hosts its own services on the platform, the gatekeeper
has a conflict of interest. The FTC should seriously consider establishing a duty of dominant platforms to
treat all firms that are rivals on the platform (including its own) neutrally. As a first step the FTC should require the platform
either to announce clearly regarding search query returns: “You are advised that we give preference to our own product”64 or to offer neutral,
merit-based treatment. This can be done immediately. Writers and implementers of the algorithm should be rewarded on the basis of the
system’s performance, not on the basis of the platform’s own products’ performance.
4. More research should address the efficiency and innovation properties of a dominant platform’s duties of fair dealing. Framed differently: Do
we get more, and more dynamic, innovation (1) in a world in which the dominant platform has no antitrust duties to those who use its platform
in competition with it, or (2) in a world in which the platform has the duty of neutral treatment?
5. Strategies of dominant firms to nip emerging competition in the bud by preemptive strike
acquisitions should be taken seriously .65 Anticompetitive acquisitions of start-ups should be prohibited
under the merger laws. Strategies of dominant firms to nip competitors in the bud should be prohibited as monopolistic
conduct.
6. When the public cries: “Abuse by big data,” antitrust technocrats often respond: “Not my problem.” This is the wrong answer. We need
to break out of silo-thinking that reduces antitrust to output-limiting conduct and assumes that single
firm conduct is efficient.
VI. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the big data platforms do pose problems that are antitrust problems. There are antitrust means to call big data to account. It is
time for the United States to stop the big data antitrust abuses.
Moving away from consumer welfare reinvigorates US leadership in antitrust

Spencer Weber Waller 20, John Paul Stevens Chair in Competition Law, Loyola University Chicago
School of Law, Article: The Omega Man or the Isolation of U.S. Antitrust Law, 52 Connecticut Law
Review. 123, Nexis Uni
C. Exclusion from the Conversation
There is a robust and ongoing conversation among governments and non-governmental experts about
competition law, policy, institutions, remedies, and norms. That conversation takes place in international
organizations, bilateral consultations, cooperation between agencies on individual enforcement matters, technical assistance
with newer and smaller competition agencies, bar associations, industry groups, universities, think tanks, conferences, legal publications, and in
legal, business, and general interest publications. 485
The United States is, and should be, part of that conversation. We have a proud history and a record of great
accomplishment. However, the rest of the world is less subject to U.S. pressure and less interested in U.S.
recommendations that are rooted in the history and present policies of the United States if these ideas do
not meet the needs of the other jurisdictions. At the same time, the rest of the world has an increasingly
deep and impressive track record of enforcement, as well as legal and policy innovations of their own. If the antitrust
community is going to continue to have a productive dialogue and not a series of one-way speeches, then a number of
changes must occur. These changes include a recognition of difference, a greater appreciation for listening,
the need for two-way learning, a recognition of the limits of deep harmonization, and a fundamentally different
role for the United States on the international stage.
1. Look Before You Leap

For decades, the United States has been a vigorous salesman for the principles embodied in the Sherman Act. 486It is not clear how successful
it has been of late. It is also not clear why most jurisdictions should adopt a particular position or practice of the United States in their own
competition law without great care and caution. The slow, complicated adoption of criminal cartel enforcement in certain jurisdictions (and
rejection in others) illustrates the need to tailor concepts appropriate to one legal culture before implementation in another setting.
[*204] 2. Avoid Bullying
There is a significant difference between not understanding how the United States approaches a particular competition issue and fully
understanding what is being advocated, but not agreeing with the proposal. The knowledge and sophistication of enforcers, practitioners, and
academics around the world suggest that the latter is the case far more than the former. As Oliver Wendell Holmes once observed: "[Y]ou can
not argue a man into liking a glass of beer." 487
The United States has made its case forcefully and often to the international antitrust community. It should continue to do so when it believes
that the national interest so dictates. But decades into the international antitrust game, the world is now pretty much divided into those who
like the U.S. beer and those who do not.
There is a different model that derives from the field of community organizing of social work. In past decades, well-meaning community
organizers were often the voice of oppressed or powerless communities, teaching them what they needed and how to get it. In more recent
times, a newer model has emerged where the goal is not to be the voice for another community but to support them in finding their voice and
be an ally as they advocate on their own behalf. 488
3. Learn to Listen
Perhaps it is time for the United States in the international antitrust arena to "talk less, smile more." 489Building on the analogy from the world
of community organizing, we are at, or rapidly arriving at, the point in global antitrust discourse where the United States should advocate less
for what it wants and listen more to the hopes and needs of other jurisdictions and how to help them achieve their own goals.
There is still an important role for the United States (and other developed jurisdictions) to play in providing technical
assistance and other forms of training to the smaller, newer, and poorer antitrust jurisdictions around
the [*205] world. These jurisdictions seek to enforce their laws often with minimal resources and
experience. Bilateral, regional, and international fora can be a vital tool for workshops on how to do the
work of competition enforcement better. But better often means actively listening to determine the needs of beneficiaries and
helping them find their voice, not echoing the voice of another.
4. Listen to Learn
It may also be time for the United States to consider being a buyer, rather than seller, in the arena of
antitrust policy. It has been decades since the United States was the world's policeman for antitrust. For better or worse, that
honor now goes to the EU for the foreseeable future if the hands-off attitude of the United States toward the issue
of single firm conduct continues.
Is there really nothing the United States can learn from the more than sixty years of EU competition law, or the nearly thirty years since the
flowering of global antitrust regimes in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union? One starting point may be the value of applying competition
law to restraints in the public sector or involving firms receiving special privileges from the state. Anticompetitive state and local restrictions
may be less of an issue in the United States compared to countries with a history of socialism or state-planned economies, but it is not a
negligible problem. It is also one which unusually tends to unite antitrust conservatives and liberals as an issue worth tackling.
It would probably take congressional action to overturn the antitrust state action doctrine as enunciated by the Supreme Court in Parker v.
Brown and its progeny. 490There also is uncharted territory involving the interpretation of sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment
as another possible source of state authority to impede competition. 491
The FTC has begun down this path without expressly relying on the many sources of comparative competition law to support its efforts to
narrow the state action doctrine. It has brought selected antitrust enforcement actions which have resulted in the Supreme Court raising the
bar for successful invocation of state action immunity. 492At the same time, it has also resulted in certain state legislatures more explicitly
mandating the anticompetitive results and processes to satisfy the new Supreme Court standards, making it hard to determine the net results
in the real world. 493 [*206] For the past several years, the FTC has also begun an "economic liberty" project as a
competition advocate for the removal of state and local restraints on competition that harm consumers even if protected by the state action
doctrine as currently understood. 494
Perhaps it is time to use the collective experience of the rest of the world as an additional argument for
the benefits of this approach. The United States is not the only federal system in the world to confront the
issue of the limits of the authority of constituent states or provinces. The United States has never highly valued
comparative law in the competition sphere, or in general. Perhaps now is the time to employ this new type of learning and argumentation in
both its litigation and advocacy strategies to diminish harm to competition from an entire sector of the economy only partially subject to the
normal rules of the competitive market.
Even if the U.S. agencies are not receptive to the explicit reference to comparative competition norms,
the courts may be another fertile arena for learning from international practice. It is highly unusual for any U.S.
court or agency to cite foreign law or practice in the antitrust field except as background information to deciding an issue on purely U.S.
grounds. 495This was once a necessity as the United States was nearly alone in having a mature body of antitrust learning and precedent. It is
no longer the case. The
divergence and diversity of doctrine and practice set forth in this Article provide many fertile
avenues for consideration in improving our own laws, procedures, institutions, and remedies. Learning and
best practices should be a two-way street and a true form of regulatory humility in moving toward best
practices based on a body of global experience where the United States is often the outlier.
5. Be Aware of New Rhetorical Strategies
Rhetoric, discourse, and language are important tools to channel conversation, close off paths for discussions, categorize contending points
[*207] of view as beyond the pale, and define the shape of disciplines. 496They can be both tools of reaction and revolution. 497
United States officials and commentators are employing a variety of relatively new rhetorical strategies in
response to new movements in U.S. antitrust and the continuing developments on the international and global
front. Many of these strategies seem innocuous or even self-evident. Many of these suggestions even contain
important kernels of truth.
At the same time, most of these strategies represent an attempt to maintain the primacy of a normative and
theoretical position about how to operate the antitrust enterprise and an attempt to justify the relative
inaction of the United States in enforcing types of causes of action that are commonplace in other jurisdictions. It
will be interesting to follow how the continuing international dialogue between the United States and the rest
of the world embraces or rejects some of the rhetorical justifications of the U.S. status quo.
i. Hipster Antitrust
Figures from former U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch to former FTC Commissioner Joshua Wright have derided hipster antitrust as
anything that argues against increased economic concentration and its effects on employment, wages, technological
progress, abuse of power, and other societal ills. 498It is not clear exactly what hipster antitrust is or whether it is a
bad thing. In general, a hipster can be defined "as a person who follows the latest trends and fashions, especially those regarded as being
outside the cultural mainstream." 499
[*208] Hipster can also mean artisanal, custom, uniquely created products and services for discerning customers. That suggests the antitrust
enterprise is not one size fits all and should be crafted with the needs of the customer in mind, rather than the purveyor.
This intended epithet is invoked primarily to denigrate anything and anyone that criticizes the wealth
maximization paradigm favored by Robert Bork and his disciples. 500More polite discourse on these topics
tends to characterize critics of Borkian antitrust as neo-Brandeisians, but still dismisses such concerns as
either unworkable in practice or beyond the proper boundaries of antitrust. 501Either way, dismissing
fundamental critiques of one view of the work of antitrust, primarily associated with the United States, misses the
current state of the world, which approaches competition law and policy with a broader palate of tools
and approaches.
Plan
The United States federal government should adopt a symmetric competition
standard for anticompetitive business practices.
Solvency
SOLVENCY
Protecting the competitive process requires looking at the welfare of all participants in
the process---that can be enforced through a symmetric welfare standard
Warren Grimes 20, Irving D. & Florence Rosenberg Professor of Law, Southwestern Law School, Adam
Smith, the Competitive Process, and the Flawed Consumer Welfare Standard, GRUR International, 69(1),
2020, 3–13 DOI: 10.1093/grurint/ikz020
III. A Symmetric Welfare Standard
A symmetric welfare standard, one that applies to all market participants and at all levels of the
distribution system, is consistent with the competition law goal of protecting the competitive process.
Such a standard recognizes that effective competition is a two-sided bargaining process unimpeded by
either buyer or seller power abuse. The use of a symmetric standard also is likely to capture other
essential competition values that Bork’s narrow consumer welfare standard excluded. Prominent
examples include innovation and the need for consumer and entrepreneurial choice. A narrow focus on
output and consumer price does not provide adequate protection for choice and entry among those
who would enter and provide novel offerings. These values are far more likely to be protected under a
symmetric welfare standard that addresses abusive practices at any stage of the production-
distribution chain.
A symmetric welfare standard looks to distortions in the competitive process at any level. Once a
distortion is found, the inquiry is at an end. As the U.S. Supreme Court wrote in 1972, courts applying the Sherman Antitrust
Act should not inquire whether to ‘sacrifice competition in one portion of the economy for greater competition in another portion.’53 Such a
rule serves administrative simplicity in enforcing competition laws, but serves another even more important goal. Once a substantial distortion
in competition is demonstrated, its impact on upstream or downstream allocation decisions cannot correct for that distortion. At that point, the
goal of achieving society’s most preferred allocation is corrupted. For
example, if an exercise of buyer power results in
lower prices for consumers, that outcome cannot be claimed as a true efficiency. In the absence of the
buyer power abuse, consumers might pay higher prices, but those prices would be a true embodiment
of the preferred allocation that the competition process protects.
Low prices and efficiency are indeed critical ancillary goals in protecting the competitive process. Below, I examine in greater detail the
relationship between these benefits and the pivotal goal of protecting the competitive process.
1. Low Prices, Efficiency and The Competitive Process
The traditional goal of competition laws in Europe and the United States has been to protect the
competitive process. When protected, the competitive process serves a series of ancillary goals,
including encouraging and promoting efficiency, low prices, choices for entrepreneurs and consumers,
innovation and ease of entry. Low prices can be achieved by efficiency. Efficiency is often associated with specialized labor,
assembly line production, and other factors that increase economies of scale. Adam Smith recognized that a firm with specialists, each with a
narrowly defined task, could produce more pins than one which allowed each worker to perform all the operations in crafting a pin.54 Smith
did not contend, however, that efficient production was an end in itself.
Low prices can also be achieved by oppressive exercises of buyer power. When a buyer can obtain labor or other inputs at distorted, low prices, that is not a true efficiency, even if the low prices are passed on to consumers. One can imagine a society in which all health care is provided by
giant and impersonal organizations; all chickens are raised in crowded factory conditions that prevent the birds from access to the outside or eating a natural diet; and all restaurants are owned by large franchise operations with standardized menus. Each of these scenarios is consistent
with low cost provision of products and services. Many consumers, however, would not choose to live in this world. Workers in these provider organizations might also prefer to work elsewhere. Society can reach preferred outcomes only if the preferences of both buyers and sellers are
part of the give and take of a commercial transaction.
Given a choice, many doctors and nurses would prefer to be a part of a small practice, not a large health care organization. Running such a practice may generate higher per patient costs than running a giant healthcare organization. Patients, however, may prefer the personal interactions
and trust associated with the small practice. Some, at least, would willingly pay more for the healthcare with the personal touch. Preferred allocation would occur only if consumers were given choices. And those choices would be available only if medical professionals themselves had
options in how they practice. The options of a doctor or nurse in choosing how to practice should be limited by competition, not by abusively exercised buyer power. Critics of the current U.S. healthcare system point out that mergers of hospitals, insurance companies, drug companies,
and retail drug stores push medical professionals to choose a large medical services provider over small practice.55
In labor markets, theemployer’s ability to exploit workers who lack choices can result in lower prices for
consumers. A merger enforcement policy that looks only to consumer prices can easily ignore the
preferences of those who provide the labor. Labor markets, which some economists in the past assumed were
competitive,56 are increasingly recognized as highly concentrated and potentially exploitative of a worker who,
wanting to remain in a community where family and friends reside, may have very limited choices in seeking employment. The reach of the
geographic market for a worker is often much more limited than the geographic market for the output product and may be more limited still
for low skilled workers lacking in transportation and housing options.57
A key point is that merger law should be sensitive to buyer power issues, including labor market issues,
when determining whether to allow a proposed merger. In the United States, historical failures to
recognize buyer power issues have left meat processing in the hands of very few processors, with the
result that a farmer or rancher wishing to sell livestock may have only a single processor within
reasonable distance. Naidu could not identify a single U.S. merger that has been halted because of labor market concerns.58 The EU
has, in a few cases, recognized buyer power issues as grounds for prohibiting a combination, albeit because of
concerns with non-labor inputs.59 In both the EU and the U.S., more systematic attention needs to paid for analyzing harm to input markets,
both labor and material.60
Society’s interest in efficient production and distribution is amply protected under a symmetric preferred
allocation standard. Buyers will still have a preference for the lowest priced product that they find satisfactory. Sellers will have a
strong incentive to get that satisfactory product to consumers at the lowest possible cost. Low prices,
however, are not an end in itself. Higher cost and less efficient firms will (and should) survive when they provide a service or
product in a manner that both the providers themselves and substantial numbers of customers prefer. Put another way, efficiency is
favored by the competitive process. But lower prices obtained by buyer power abuse are not favored.
Such prices are anticompetitive because they distort allocation away from society’s competitively
disciplined preferences.
Lower retail prices that flow from a buyer abuse should not be exculpatory. A
symmetric welfare standard should sidestep
the task of weighing consumer interests against the interests of labor or input providers. Competition
law recognizes that any substantial distortion of a competitive market is anticompetitive, regardless of
whether it occurs on the buyer or seller side. Under this symmetric approach, once a substantial distortion is
established, the inquiry is at an end.61 When a seller cartel is proven, enforcement policy does not
inquire whether there are possible procompetitive benefits in the upstream input markets. The same is true
for a buyer cartel: no inquiry into possible benefits in downstream markets is necessary or desirable. This symmetry in treating buyer and seller
cartels appears settled in EU law62 and is consistent with U.S. precedents condemning buyer cartels.63
The approach of confining the decision maker’s inquiry to the direct threat from a merger or abusive exercise of market power, whether that
threat be on the buyer or seller side, is also consistent with efficient administration of competition laws. Indirect upstream or downstream
effects are difficult to prove and uncertain in likelihood. Inviting inquiry into such indirect effects invites subjective and biased adjudication. No
decision maker should be asked to weigh harm to consumers against harm to upstream input providers.
2. A Symmetric Welfare Standard in Practice
A substantial threat to competitive outcomes at any level of the distribution chain should be a basis for
prohibiting anticompetitive conduct. Abusive conduct should be unlawful regardless of whether the
harm is projected upstream to sellers or downstream to buyers. In merger analysis, this means that a more-
efficient-outputs defense should not prevail when the merger threatens substantial harm in the labor
or other input markets If a merger threatens no harm on the buyer side, efficiency defenses may still be valid to address whether the
merger would unlawfully enhance seller market power if, however unlikely, there is a probable competitive market that will discipline the
merged firm to pass along efficiency gains in the form of lower price.64 Below, I consider how the preferred allocation standard would assess
hypothetical mergers and other possible competition law violations.
a) Merger of two large meatpacking firms
In this hypothetical, two large meatpacking firms propose to merge. Each specializes in the slaughter of hogs and packaging of pork for retail consumption. In a jurisdiction with the size and population of the United States, this merger may not significantly affect consumer prices for pork
as long as there are a least four large firms remaining after the merger. The buyer power impact of the merger, however, may be substantial. One economic study of the hog market suggests that, in order to give hog farmers reasonable competitive alternatives, the United States would
need to have considerably more than four pork processing firms.65 Transportation costs limit options available to hog farmers, so that only the nearest processing plants may be cost-efficient buyers of a farmer’s animals.
Assuming the accuracy of this economic study, this merger should be prohibited because of its buyer power impact, notwithstanding that it would not likely affect consumer prices for pork (or conceivably might lower retail prices). Pork processors may achieve lower costs, and some of
these savings may be passed on to consumers in lower retail prices, but these gains would come at the cost of distorted and suppressed prices paid to farmers who raise hogs. Once again, efficiency should be allowed to run its natural course, but not if the consequence is buyer power
that suppresses the natural competitive dynamic. The suppressed prices paid to hog farmers are, of course, not true efficiencies but evidence of market power abuse. Indeed, even if true efficiencies could be demonstrated, the merger should be prohibited. Arguments that the merger
would increase economies of scale or save marketing expenses should be rejected. A merger that achieves lower costs while substantially distorting market choices through an exercise of either buyer or seller market power is not consistent with a preferred allocation of society’s
resources.
b) Merger of two paper manufacturing firms
In this example, two large paper manufacturing plants are located in two small towns, separated by 10 kilometers. The first plant, owned by Firm A, manufactures standard grade paper of a type used in computer printers. The second plant, owned by Firm B, manufactures a craft paper
with special applications. The machines and processes required to produce the separate types of paper differ substantially. Firm A proposes to acquire Firm B. Demand side analysis shows the merger to be unproblematic. The firms are not direct rivals because each produces only its own
type of paper. Switching machinery and processes to produce the other firm’s type of paper would require major investments, so supply side analysis also shows the merger to be unproblematic. An analysis of the labor market, however, shows the merger could have substantial
anticompetitive potential.
In the two towns where the plants are located, no other major manufacturing occurs. The nearest community offering other factory employment is beyond reasonable commuting distance. Various categories of workers employed by either of these two firms, including unskilled workers,
specialty workers who maintain and repair machines, or clerical workers who aid in administering the factory may have no other comparable job opportunities in the region. The merger of these two firms would leave employment opportunities for these workers in the hands of a single
employer, converting a duopsony into a monopsony.
Some of these workers may enjoy protection from labor laws that allow for collective bargaining. The protections afforded by labor laws may appropriately be seen as supplementary protection – or a second-best solution when the normal give and take of labor markets does not
adequately shield workers from abusive buyer power. The best result under either U.S. or EU competition law would be to prohibit this merger that would create a local monopsonist in hiring some categories of workers for the two plants. The two firms might argue that they can more
efficiently market their products (standard printer paper and specialty craft paper) together. But that efficiency, assuming it were established, should not change the result. Efficiency may drive the two firms to a joint marketing scheme that presumably would be permitted under
competition law. Even if such a joint marketing scheme were not feasible, this merger should be prohibited once it is established that the merger is likely to substantially distort competitive outcomes in the labor input market.66
A more complex issue could arise if a merger threatens to increase buyer power substantially, but that power is thought to be countervailing to strong seller power. There are reasons to view such a countervailing power defense skeptically, particularly if the seller side of the market
would still be open to small seller entrants in the absence of buyer power. A merger that would increase buyer power, if prohibited, might leave the parties free to establish less permanent joint procurement programs to wield countervailing power. Merging firms should not be allowed
to invoke a self-fulfilling prophecy defense – one based on a reality (or anticipated reality) that firms they buy from or sell to already operate in concentrated markets. Upstream or downstream markets that have become unduly concentrated could revert to more competitive conditions if
merger policy refused to accept countervailing power defenses.
c) Two-sided platforms
Two-sided platforms – where a firm generates revenue in two ways from selling an interconnected product or service – are not a novelty. Newspapers have long fit this mold, earning revenue both from selling subscriptions to readers and advertisements to sellers. Competition law
treatment of such markets has become increasingly important because many of the world’s largest digital firms sell in two-sided platforms.67 Competition law’s treatment of these platforms illustrates the potential pitfalls of applying a consumer welfare standard. Analysis of two-sided
platforms can be complex, involving issues of price discrimination and network efficiencies.68 Firms may operate one side of the platform at a loss in order to profit more heavily from the other side of the platform. Much of that complexity disappears if the focus is on whether there is
substantial anticompetitive conduct on either side of the market that distorts outcomes. If there is, a symmetric welfare standard would condemn the conduct regardless of effects on the other side of the platform. That result would be consistent with a preferred allocation of resources
and the central competition law goal of protecting the competitive process.
In Ohio v American Express Co., the U.S. Supreme Court dealt with the two-sided platform for American Express credit cards.69 The firm generated revenues from card holders who were charged fees for holding the card, for late payments, and for interest on unpaid balances. The firm
also earned by charging merchants a percentage of the selling price each time the card was used to make a purchase. American Express prohibited merchants from promoting use of competing credit cards that charged the merchant lower fees. The effect of this antisteering provision was
to suppress competition from rival credit cards on the merchant fees side of the platform. If, as seems likely, merchants passed this additional cost on to consumers, the practice would increase the retail selling price. This did not deter American Express from arguing that the high fees
charged to merchants could result in enhanced value or better service for consumers, including rebate or ‘rewards’ programs to card users.
In a split five to four decision, the Court held that the Government could win this case only by demonstrating that the net competitive effect, after looking at both sides of the platform market, was harmful to consumers.70 Leaving aside the complexity or impossibility of making such a
showing, the Court’s focus on consumers was improper. The suppression of competition on the merchant fees side of the platform was undisputed. This market distortion should be pivotal; any benefits that consumers received were not freely chosen by them and were not a result of
unimpeded competition. Competition laws protect the competitive process and can best do so through a symmetric welfare standard that would not tolerate a substantial distortion upstream, downstream, or on one side of a two-sided platform simply because it resulted in lower prices
or enhanced value to consumers. As noted previously, an upstream buyer’s cartel can be condemned under either U.S. or EU law regardless of whether it results in lower prices to consumers. A preferred allocation of all goods and services can occur only when there are no substantial
distortions at any stage in the production-distribution system.
The facts of Amex can be instructively compared to two other situations in which a powerful seller may use leverage or market power to exploit buyers or exclude rivals. Each of these examples involves the sale of complementary or related products. In the first example, a powerful seller
uses leverage over a tying product to charge users a supracompetitive price for the tied product. This requirements tie increases the seller’s return, but distorts the marketplace away from the competitive norm by exploiting users through high prices for the tied product.71 In the second
example, a powerful seller uses bundling of related products to charge a higher price for the bundled product. Here, buyers value the items in the bundle (items A, B, and C) at different levels. The high price charged for the bundle will not deter buyers provided that each buyer has a high
reservation price (a price the buyer is willing to pay that is higher than the competitive price) for at least one of the three items. Again, the bundling distorts allocations away from the competitive norm by charging all buyers a higher price for the bundled product. Each of these examples
would be condemned under a symmetric welfare standard that protects the competitive process.
The facts of Amex differ from the two examples because, in Amex, there are separate buyers for the two services (the card is used as a payment vehicle by consumers and as a revenue collection device by merchants). This distinction, however, does not alter the competitive analysis. As in
the two examples, Amex is using its power derived from the sale of one product to exploit buyers in the use of another product: The power derived from the sale of credit cards (which provides a valuable network of users) is used to exploit merchants in the pricing of the revenue
collection service. In none of these cases is the underlying conduct per se unlawful. It is anticompetitive only when market power is used to force an outcome that distorts the competitive process. Neither a tie-in nor a bundled sale of products is unlawful as long as the buyer has a choice
in whether to buy products separately. Likewise, the decision of Amex to charge merchants a higher per purchase fee is benign as long as merchants can freely use and promote a credit card that charges a lower fee.
Of course, the most direct injury of the American Express conduct was that it suppressed competition in the credit card market, making it more difficult for a small or innovative rival to enter and survive. This is a classic horizontal injury. Such distortions also undermine ancillary benefits of
competition, such as protecting consumer and entrepreneurial choice, free entry, and innovation. Consumers, given a choice, might have preferred lower cost items to any rewards program offered by the credit card company. They were not given that choice. The EU has initiated multiple
enforcement actions against credit card firms based on the interchange fees paid by merchants.72 The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to block a relatively straightforward competition law intervention may, in the future, lead to more intrusive EU-type regulation of the merchant fees.
d) Merger of two large food retail chains
As a result of large food chains’ gatekeeping power, a merger of two large retail grocery chains can undermine entry or survival of small producers and distributors of food products. Raising some of these issues, European authorities have blocked a merger of two large Finish food
retailers.73 This result is consistent with the symmetric allocation standard advocated here. Such mergers should not be excused based on arguments that they offer the potential of lowering prices to consumers or because they might allow the exercise of countervailing power against
oligopsonistic providers of food products. If upstream suppliers are wielding seller power against food retailers, these issues should be dealt with through merger control and monopoly or dominance provisions that prohibit exclusionary conduct. A symmetric welfare standard highlights
the importance of enforcement of competition law up and down the vertical chain. Options for using abuse of dominance or monopoly claims against power buyers are discussed below.
e) Powerful buyers’ predatory or exclusionary conduct
The U.S. Supreme Court dealt with predatory buying in Weyerhaeuser Co. v Ross Simmons Hardwood Lumber Co. 74 A powerful firm’s predatory buying is an abuse that parallels predatory pricing by a powerful seller. In each case, the predation can in the short term benefit the small
player: predatory buying inflates the price of input goods for a time, benefitting the small seller; predatory pricing decreases the price of output goods for a time, benefitting the consumer or small buyer. But the predation is directed at rivals of the powerful firm, disciplining them or
driving them from the market. In the longer term, the small sellers (predatory buying) and the small buyers (predatory pricing) are harmed by the elimination or disciplining of the rival firm that offered more favorable terms.
There is no reason to treat the harm differently. Yet, the U.S. Supreme Court, focusing on the consumer welfare standard, suggested that predatory buying should be harmful only when it resulted in higher prices for consumers.75 That result favors consumers over workers or small
sellers, a value judgment nowhere evident in the text of the Sherman Act or EU competition law and at odds with a proper understanding of preferred allocation. Once a substantial abusive distortion has been established, there should be no second guessing of how a buyer power abuse
might affect output or price at the other end of the distribution chain. The goal of competition law is to eliminate power-based distortions by buyers or sellers alike, not to guarantee a favored position for consumers regardless of the distortion’s harm to those who provide service and
product inputs. Whether, as a result of the predatory buying, consumer prices may be higher or stay the same will be difficult to establish and should be irrelevant once the plaintiff has established the elements of a predatory buying case.
The same approach should apply to other types of buyer power conduct. Theorists have identified a number of practices in the U.S. and the EU that could suppress wages and output for workers, including covenants not to compete that workers are required to sign and collusive conduct
among employers relating to labor markets.76 Some seller power offenses do not readily translate for buyer power conduct. For example, a powerful seller may impose conditions on the purchase of its product. Examples may be tie-ins or exclusive dealing requirements. Similarly, a
powerful buyer may impose conditions on those who sell to it. Those conditions cannot be aptly described as traditional seller power offenses, such as tie-ins. Competition law of the future must make room for recognizing new forms of abusive conduct by powerful buyers.
The EU may have taken a step in this direction through its 2019 Directive on unfair trading practices in the agricultural and food supply chain.77 Many of the addressed practices would not fit easily into traditional competition law categories. For example, an insistence by a buyer that the
seller accept the return of unsold perishable food products is an exercise of buyer power, but not one that has an established antitrust pedigree. Under a symmetric welfare standard, future competition law decisions may adjust to reach such abusive practices.
IV. Conclusion
Adam Smith’s narrow but salient contribution to the debate on the proper competition law standard
can be briefly stated: a preferred allocation of goods and services occurs when competition responds to
the unimpeded preferences of buyers and sellers. That is the beneficial welfare result of competition and the laws that
protect it. The consumer welfare standard is, at best, mislabeled in a manner that confuses economic
analysis. That confusion has led to misdirected enforcement and misguided judicial decisions. The
standard should be replaced by a symmetric welfare standard that focuses on whether market power is
being exercised in a manner that substantially distorts competitive outcomes, regardless of the stage in the
distribution chain in which distortion occurs and regardless of whether the harm is directed to upstream sellers or downstream buyers.
A symmetric welfare standard is not novel. It is perhaps best seen as a rethinking of how best to
implement the traditional competition law goal of protecting the competitive process. The
standard is sound in theory and relatively easy to explain and apply. It more comfortably honors the
broader goals of competition, including promoting entry, innovation, and choices for both
entrepreneurs and consumers. By casting aside a contrived laser focus on consumers, the symmetric
welfare standard can restore and revitalize competition law while enhancing life quality and choices
for entrepreneurs and consumers alike.
Using the antitrust toolkit to target the process of competition is key---outcome-

orientation fails because the means of harming competition are infinite AND because
of capture.
Jan Eeckhout 21, professor at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, “12 Putting the Trust Back into
Antitrust,” The Profit Paradox, 06/01/2021, pp. 234–274
As a former antitrust official under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Wendell Berge’s view on monopoly shows how hard a problem antitrust can
be: “Theweapons of monopoly are as numerous as they are artful and varied. It is for this reason that
monopoly conditions have often grown up almost unnoticed by the public until one day it is suddenly
realized that an industry is no longer competitive but is governed by an economic oligarchy able to crush
all competition.”9
There is no panacea to resolving market power. There are no ready-made solutions, especially knowing that a
large number of experts who think about antitrust for a living do not find easy solutions. Those experts
include the employees, lawyers, and judges at the competition authorities; the experts working for the
consulting firms that advise on mergers; and academic economists working on problems in antitrust and
industrial organization. Many of t hose experts think hard about what can be done. An excellent review of the state of antitrust
enforcement is the recent book by Jonathan Baker, The Antitrust Paradigm.10 While you are not reading a book about antitrust, antitrust is
at the root of resolving market power, which in turn is causing the major problems that work faces in
modern times.
A simple, straightforward solution to market power that might come to mind is to tax a firm’s profits.
While this raises revenue that can be distributed to those who suffer from market power, it does not take away the
source of the problem, that firms charge prices that are too high. If Apple makes $100 billion in profits by selling
iPhones at $1,200 each, then even if the corporate tax rate goes from 10 percent to 80 percent, Apple will still sell the iPhone at $1,200— even
with higher taxes it wants to set a price that generates the highest pos si ble profits. When
European authorities went after
Apple’s profits hidden in Ireland in 2014 there were major distributional implications, but it did not do
anything to reduce the root cause of market power and high prices .
While taxing profits has some effect on investment and incentives for executives,11 it has mainly distributional implications
only. And contrary to what you often hear in the public opinion, maintaining high profits for firms is not an objective for society. Profits
are there to reward investment, but excess profits will always be driven down to the bare minimum
when the market is competitive. As Adam Smith eloquently advocated: “Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all
production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.”12
The reason, of course, is that consumers are best off under the lowest possible prices. Any profits the firm makes are transferred to the
consumer when prices drop, so nothing is lost from lowering prices at the cost of lower profits. To the contrary, the added benefit of low prices
is that more customers can afford to buy, which is the real gain of competition. The so-called consumer surplus is highest: prices are low and
the number of buyers is maximal.
Moreover, when markets are competitive the corporate tax rate is irrelevant because there are barely any
profits. Because corporate taxes can’t attack the cause of market power, competition authorities have a
complicated job. Regulation has to resort to more sophisticated measures that restore competition.
The most visi ble antitrust action often discussed in the media is merger review. When two firms merge, or one firm acquires another firm, the merging firms are reviewed u nder certain
circumstances by the relevant government authority. In the United States that is typically the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) or the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Both authorities share the enforcement of civil antitrust laws, where the Antitrust Division of the DOJ can also enforce criminal m atters. The FTC was set up by Woodrow Wilson in 1914
together with the Clayton Antitrust Act to rein in the powers of the trusts that were engaging in unfair competition. This legislation was building on earlier legislation, most notably the 1890
Sherman Antitrust Act, which is still the main legal basis of antitrust enforcement.
In the Eu ro pean Union (EU), each country has its own competition authority, but Eu ro pean competition law that promotes a competitive Eu ro pean single market is directed from the
executive branch, the Eu ro pean Commission. Procedures are diff er ent across continents, but the basic princi ples are common.
For example, in 2018 AT&T acquired the media com pany Time War- ner. This deal had to be approved by the DOJ in the United States and by several antitrust authorities around the world
where either of the companies is active. In such proceedings the justice ruling on the case hears arguments presented by the attorney general of the DOJ’s Anti- trust Division who argues the
case for the US customers, while AT&T’s lawyers argue the case for the com pany. The judge can rule to stop the acquisition, they can ask AT&T to divest (or sell off) some businesses that
generate dominance in some markets—t here was talk of divesting DirectTV or Turner Broadcasting, the owner of CNN—or they can approve the acquisition.
Key in these rulings and the antagonistic judicial system is of course the subjective views that each of the parties defends. Th ose views and facts differ, depending on the interests of each
party arguing their case. In addition, t here is also an active academic and policy debate, often linked to schools of thought. However . . .
There Are No Schools of Thought
There are only indvidual thinkers with an opinion and research to back up their claims. Still, in the quest for organizing ideas, the
antitrust
debate is often painted as a war between two ideological views, impersonated by two schools of thought, the
Brandeisian school and the Chicago school. Moreover, these schools are often associated with simplistic
political views of left and right. The reality is much more nuanced, not only because of the
disagreement within each of these schools but also because many scholars and practitioners do not
identify with either of them. At the risk of grossly oversimplifying, and with the irresponsibility of perpetuating this simplistic view, let
me nonetheless reproduce how people often refer to these two broad schools of thought on antitrust.
The Brandeisian school of thought argues that mono poly and market power per se is bad. Th ese views are based on ones initially formulated by Louis Brandeis.13 Brandeis, who became a Supreme Court justice under President Woodrow Wilson, argued that monopolies and large firms
were harming competitors, customers, and the firms’ workers. He also pointed out that large monopolistic firms had a detrimental effect on innovation.
The Brandeisian view was formed at the beginning of the twentieth century— modern times— a time of high market power. The excess concentration of corporate wealth became so salient that it took President Theodore Roo se velt to break up those corporations and trusts that had
cemented that market power. In his “Square Deal,” Roo se velt advocated his three C’s, for conservation, control of corporations, and consumer protection. He was in f avor of trusts and or ga nized l abor but against the exploitation of market power by e ither. Roos e velt fought to
regulate the fiefdom of the robber barons.
It was during the period of Roo se velt’s presidency that Brandeis formed his opinion on antitrust. Large firms were considered harmful because they exerted market power, even if those firms were operating more efficiently. Most importantly, Brandeis argued that the concentration of
market power and large firms was detrimental for innovation, stymied business dynamism, and hurt workers and suppliers. Brandeis labeled it “the Curse of Bigness.” Moreover, large, profitable firms had enough cash to influence the po litic al decisions in their f avor, which led to even
more consolidation and dominance.
Just a fter World War II, the Brandeisian view was prominently associated with Harvard, and therefore sometimes called the Harvard school. Up until the 1970s, Harvard and their structural approach dominated the era of activist antitrust enforcement, inspired by the works of Ed- ward
Chamberlain, Edward Mason, and Joe Bain, who argued that the simple fact of market concentration— that few firms hold the majority of the market share— leads to anticompetitive conduct.14
The half century following the Great Depression had been a period of low concentration and low market power. Still, the Brandeisian school would soon lose the fight for ideological dominance to the Chi- cago school in the early 1980s. In recent years, though, with mounting evidence of
rising market power and concentration, the Brandeisian view has regained some of that lost luster, most notably with an article by legal scholar Lina Khan that has drawn attention to the broad impact of Amazon’s mono poly power on suppliers, competitors, workers, and customers.15
One of the main criticisms of the Brandeisian school is that they advocate for competition per se and for
keeping those inefficient producers artificially alive. Having competitors lowers prices only if those competitors are similarly productive. When
some producers are much less productive than the leader— for example, Amazon in retail—it is as if those inefficient producers do not exist
because they cannot really compete with the leader. That is both costly and in effective.
By the late 1970s, the Chicago school started to gain prominence with a litigation approach that was built on empirical evidence. L awyers such as Richard Posner and Robert Bork, and economists such as George Stigler, Arnold Harberger and Milton Friedman, all associated with the
University of Chicago, believed that business should be let f ree. When a firm charges a price that is too high and generates abnormal profits, other firms w ill step in and compete to grab some of the profits. Usually, losses to consumers are very small— measured by the reputed Harberg-
er’s triangle of deadweight loss— and if t here are any profits, this is merely an issue of re distribution, not of inefficiencies. If needed, profits can easily be taxed and redistributed.
But t here are subtle differences even within the Chicago school. Milton Friedman, for example, wrote extensively on the role of the American Medical Association (AMA) in thwarting competition. Putting the main lobby of medical doctors in charge of regulating entry in the market for
doctors leads to too l ittle entry of new doctors, too little competition, and wages that are too high. In chapter 4, where we discussed the impact of licensing, we saw how too little entry affects health care.
The argument that the AMA puts forward is that only they can select the best doctors and that health care is too precious and has too much impact on p eople’s lives to leave this unguarded by t hose in the know. This is a fine objective, but it does not rule out that those experts have
enormous incentives to look after their own wallets. The result is AMA- sponsored regulation to create market power u nder the guise of efficiency. Friedman of the Chicago school argued fiercely against the AMA’s self- regulation.16
The government has tried out the idea of letting industry regulate itself in other markets, too. In addition to the AMA, there are two other notable examples that Self- Regulatory Organ izations (SROs) are detrimental to customers, if not to our health. The National Association of
Realtors ensures that home buyers pay 6 percent agent fees, higher than in other countries; and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s oversight of brokerage firms and exchange markets leads to inefficiently high fees and lack of transparency.
If we extend the AMA’s argument of SROs to other leaders and decision makers, such as the executives of, say, the tech firms, then we are supposed to believe that the CEOs of Google, Apple, and Facebook should regulate their industries in order to ensure a competitive outcome. It is
no surprise that they will not do what is in society’s best interest, knowing that their shareholders (often the executives themselves) reward them on making profits, and there is no better way to do that than by creating and maintaining market power.
The differences within the Chicago school became most notable during the debate over the breakup of the telecom giant AT&T, which began in 1974 and eventually led to the creation of the Baby Bells in 1984. Some Chicago economists had argued in favor of the breakup. Instead, the
Chicago school’s l egal scholars made a case against it. They were relying on Harberger’s work, which had provided a theoretical framework and evidence that the welfare loss of market power was small.17 The period on which his evidence was based was one of high competitiveness and
low market power and, most importantly, very few large, superstar firms. Those results do not necessarily hold up in the current economy.
The nonmonolithic nature of the Chicago school in the half century after World War II is made even more manifest by the fact that some prominent members changed their views over time. Initially, Milton Friedman and George Stigler w ere in favor of government intervention and strong
antitrust enforcement in order to ensure more competition. They both moderated those views because they came to believe that the antitrust apparatus was hijacked by t hose who w ere benefiting from it. In the end, Friedman and Stigler saw antitrust regulation as more harmful to
competition than no regulation at all.18
There is no better way to illustrate the internal division within the Chicago school than with the atmosphere that used to hang over the machine room where economic ideas and ideology are produced and taught. In the late 1980s, George Stigler and Lester Telser were coteach- ing PhD
classes. Students called these classes “I hate government” and “I hate mono poly.” Telser disagreed with almost every thing Stigler thought about market power. According to Telser, large fixed costs in railroads, for example, imply that unr egul a ted competition is ruinous. Stigler
advocated against government intervention. Students asked Telser before the exam: “How should we answer questions on market power?” Telser responded: “Try to figure out who asked the question.”19
Despite the divisions within the Chicago school and the eventual breakup of AT&T, the legal scholars obtained the upper hand. The most influential figure in policy circles was Robert Bork, who is best known for almost becoming a Supreme Court justice (he was nominated by Ronald
Reagan but voted down by the Senate). He studied at the Uni- versity of Chicago and was a professor at Yale Law School, where he was an advocate of originalism, the view that aligns with the Founding Fathers’ “literal” understanding of the US Constitution.
Bork became the dominant antitrust scholar following the publica- tion of his book The Antitrust Paradox in 1978, in which he argues that what matters for antitrust enforcement is not guaranteeing competition but rather consumer welfare.
The appeal of his argument is that if firms are large because they are efficient, then the regulator should not intervene in those markets and regulate those large firms. In fact, he argues that a firm is large because it is efficient. Regulation that breaks up the large firm into multiple small
firms will lower efficiency and hence artificially raise prices. A paradox. This argument is particularly relevant t oday with the emergence of dominant firms such as Amazon. Amazon is so large because it is efficient.
While the main argument in Bork’s book continues to have merit, especially when it comes to dealing with dominance due to technological superiority or network effects, Bork’s view is too simplistic. If there are economies of scale, for example, firms still price their goods noncom-
petitively and exert market power. This requires regulatory intervention.
What is alarming is that since the 1980s, Bork’s dogma has infiltrated antitrust enforcement across a large array of cases. First, large and efficient firms still exert market power, so regulation rather than splitting them up is typically required. Second, many firms are large not because of
technological superiority but b ecause of mergers and acquisitions (M&A). It is no technological advantage that thousands of beer brands are held by two companies, or that the Match Group, Inc. owns forty-five global dating companies (including Tinder, Match.com, and OkCupid),
except that it allows these companies to set higher prices.
As a result of Bork’s influence, merger guidelines w ere relaxed and the sole criterion for allowing mergers was consumer welfare, not the effect on suppliers or workers, for example. Interestingly enough, consumer welfare is not even mentioned in the legislation on which antitrust
regulation is based, namely the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) and the FTC and Clayton Acts (1914). Following Bork, attorneys general at the DOJ need to argue that merger activity leads to abuse of dominance and that it harms the customer.
Not only is this a tall order, it is hard to construct and calculate with sufficient certainty what the outcome will be of a merger that has not happened yet. Predicting the market environment in the hy pot het i cal case of a merger requires a lot of assumptions with a wide range of po-
tential outcomes that can all be very diff er ent. In this environment, the lawyers for merging firms argue that there are enormous cost reductions resulting from mergers, the so- called synergies. Those synergies, the lawyers of the merging firms argue, w ill be passed on to customers
because firms will lower their prices when costs fall.
The real ity of antitrust litigation is less idealistic. According to a study by Deloitte, the total economic value (synergies) claimed by merging firms is $1.6 to $1.9 trillion, the equivalent of Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP).20 However, there is ample evidence that market power has
increased since 1980 and that markups rise in markets where mergers have taken place, without evidence of efficiency gains.21 What is most damning of all is that merger review activity has dramatically declined. The number of cases brought against mergers went from an average of
15.7 cases per year during the period from 1970 to 1999 to 3 cases during the period from 2000 to 2014.22 The Chicago school’s insistence on using evidence in litigation had turned into a contest of convincing judges of soft projections rather than bringing on hard scientific facts.
The current antitrust system that is supposed to police competitive behavior is based on
noncompetitive principles. Self- interested parties can argue their cases for what the benefits and losses
are without a clear incentive structure to discipline those arguments. One of Friedrich Hayek’s claims about the
pitfalls of a planned economy is that prices are tremendously distorted. Self- interested actors in the economy will claim
excessive valuations, something that does not occur in a competitive economy where competing
suppliers undercut a firm’s outlandish claims. It seems that the antitrust system looks more like a planned
economy with apparatchiks in the merging firms whose claims are not disciplined by the market.
This system, devoid of competitive forces to value costs and benefits, is reminiscent of what happened to the
selling off of broadband licenses for radio and mobile communication. Until the late 1990s, those
licenses were assigned and priced in an arbitrary manner. Companies claimed that the values of the
licenses were low. This changed drastically when the government started organizing the so-called
spectrum auctions— selling off the broadband spectrum— where all providers bid competitively. Those auctions were huge
successes not just for the government and its citizens, but also because they were a testament to the
value of competition. Government officials immediately figured out that the supposedly low valuations
they had been convinced of in earlier years disappeared into thin air when the providers could only operate
a licensed mobile ser vice if they bid the highest in a competitive auction. For a long time, economists have argued that
competition enables a much more accurate valuation than simply letting self-interested parties argue
their case.
While the juxtaposition of the Chicago and Brandeisian schools is still present in the debate, it is far too
simplistic and outdated. Many practitioners and academics do not identify with either of the two. For example,
there is an important constituency that critiques the Chicago views as wrong on the economics. These
views attach fundamental importance in our understanding of market power to the game theory
revolution in industrial organization where strategic interaction between competitors and customers is crucial in
understanding the sources of market power. This in turn led to another Copernican revolution in modern empirical research,
begun in the early 1990s, that identified market power founded in carefully specified market descriptions and the conduct of competitors.23
Yet, these critics of the Chicago view do not automatically subscribe to the Brandeisian view either. Quite to
the contrary, they take a third view. A prominent example in this recent tradition is the Thurman Ar- nold Proj ect at Yale. It is
named for the assistant attorney general of the Franklin D. Roos e velt administration in the late 1930s and early 1940s, who launched a trust-
busting campaign, to the dismay of President Roo se velt, who promoted him out of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division into the US Court of Appeals.
To date, and despite
the apparent differences between the Chicago school and the Brandeisian school,
economists are in remarkable agreement about what constitutes monopoly, market power, and
inefficiencies. Most economists see the virtues of market competition, yet they accept that regulation is
necessary when the free market fails. The contention among economists is rather the question of how
to best remedy those inefficiencies. A key concern in the debate is that even if regulation is needed, it
has the potential to make things worse because it can create perverse incentives where firms exploit
the regulation to build even more market power than without the regulation. To make things even worse,
political influence leads to legislation that is in the interest of the regulated and is therefore
counterproductive. This points to the inadequacy of the political system to implement effective regulation that restores competition.
The Vicious Circle of Market Power and Po liti cal Influence
Even if there is agreement on the negative impact of market power, the opposing views on how to deal with regulation are made into a carica- ture by those with skin in the game. Among interest groups and lobby- ists, the language is often misleading. Th ose against regulation tend to
call themselves pro- business and argue that government interference is bad and anticompetitive. But when markets fail, the absence of regulation does exactly the opposite; it makes room for market power or anticompetitive be hav ior. Therefore, a so- called pro- business view of
regulation leads to noncompetitive outcomes.
Instead, the promarket view argues that whenever there is market failure, regulation is necessary to ensure that markets are competitive. The Chicago view in its purest form is promarket, not pro- business. Still, the pro- business view hijacks the Chicago argument, in part by falsely
claiming that markets are competitive and that no regulation is needed. Moreover, the central princi ple of the pro- business view is that what is good for business is good for the economy. U nder this view, when firms make profits, those profits eventually lead to more jobs, not fewer,
and to higher wages. We have shown that the opposite is true. That is precisely the profit paradox.
When the pro- business view does recognize that t here is market power, it argues against intervention b ecause regulation does more bad than good and distorts the market even further. In response, the pro- business view often offers regulation with an additional twist: self- regulation.
The claim is that companies themselves can ensure procompetitive be hav ior by self- imposed restrictions, but it stands squarely against the central tenet of Smith’s invisible hand to ask firms not to act in their self- interest and maximize profits. Self- regulation requires firms to make
lower profits and to take actions that are in the interest of competitors and stakeholders, such as customers and workers. Who believes that Google and Facebook will self- regulate the tech sector in order to attain promarket prices and low profits? This is like asking the Koch family,
who own most of the coal industry in North Amer i ca, to reduce CO2 emissions.
Currently, rather than self- regulate in order to reduce market power, the large corporations are doing exactly the opposite: they are exploiting the po liti cal system to help write regulation that increases rather than decreases their dominance. The influence of interested parties on
legislation occurs in all spheres of society, but it is most acutely problematic when it comes to market power because it creates a vicious circle.
Po litic al influence requires money, and money is precisely what dominant firms with market power have. So what do they use the money for? To lobby for legislation that consolidates and increases their market power, generating even higher profits for them. This is a vicious circle that
gives firms with market power profits, and profits give them the money to influence politics, to buy even more market power. That in turn generates more profits.
It w ill come as no surprise that the big tech companies spend vast amounts of money on lobbying in order to influence legislation in their favor. No one is spending that money representing the duped customers or the workers whose wages stagnate due to rising market power.
Even if t here was perfect agreement among specialists on how to implement regulation in order to reduce market power, the vicious circle of a few firms with market power buying even more market power would forcefully overturn those consensual recommendations that are in the
interest of the entire economy.
Before I make concrete proposals for a solution to the broad prob lem of market power, I w ill zoom in on the solution to one par tic u lar problem for new technologies, data. In chapter 10 we saw that artificial intelligence (AI) and data hoarding are ideal sources to create market
power. To that end, I argue the case for regulation that induces data sharing.
Data as a Public Good
The phenomenon of self- driving cars is an example where the initial data collection effort combined with the continuous learning pro cess by itself is an extremely expensive operation. These algorithms only work if t here are millions of observations, so it takes an enormous investment
in time and resources to generate the data from which to learn. This creates a barrier to entry for competitors. Every one in the industry agrees that having access to data, not the software, is the key to gaining a competitive advantage. When Google generously offered to make some of
its AI code openly available, they were implicitly confirming that it is all about the data. You do not gain advantage over the competition with code: you gain advantage with data, lots of big data.
According to Hal Varian, the academic and chief economist of Google, data is like calories. “We used to be data poor, now the prob lem is data obesity.”24 The prob lem is not so much that there is too much data, but that it is distributed unequally. Some companies, like Google, have
access to a glut of data while others are starving. Even the Big Five tech firms are complaining that their competitors are faster at hoarding all the data, and this creates a disadvantage for the one arriving second. This is a true winner- take- all market.
The tech firms are keen to get into cloud computing b ecause it is another way to collect data. For what ever data proj ects you or your firm have, you need a data pipeline to channel the data. Instead of building your own data infrastructure and buying servers, you can rent space on
cloud providers such as Amazon Web Ser vices, Google Cloud Platform, or Microsoft Azure Cloud. Once your data is in the cloud, however, the landlord has access to your data. And since you are putting in a lot of effort to or ga nize the data, they can even swallow the information with-
out chewing.
Who owns data? If the data is mine as a user or contributor b ecause I have clicked to identify a bridge in a photo, shouldn’t I be the benefi- ciary of the value that the data generates? That is exactly what University of Chicago Law School professor Eric Posner and Microsoft economist
Glen Weyl propose in their recent book Radical Markets, which offers a refreshing look on the role of markets.25 The firms that benefit im- mensely should be held to reward the contributors of the data. They consider “Data as Labor” where you pay the data providers. The problem is
that millions contribute, and however large the benefits to the tech firm that collects and exploits the data, once you divide them up by the sea of contributors, it comes down to small change. Estimates of value of data contributed by users is a few dollars per year, which makes it hard to
administer.
An alternative way to induce the tech companies to compensate users for the value of their data is competition. More competition might lead social media platforms to offer rebates, or they might offer users more content. We love the ser vices of Google and Facebook, but t hose com-
panies love our data even more. Social networking sites are platforms that bring together advertisers and potential customers, just like newspapers and tele vi sion channels. The platforms attract users by offering ser vices and generate revenue by selling advertising to companies that
want to draw users’ attention. When a firm has mono poly power in any market, it charges more and gives less in return. In this case, platforms like Facebook and Google charge too much both to the companies running ads and to users, even if the price to users is zero.
In a competitive world, and to keep you from leaving their platform to the benefit of a competitor, tech firms w ill offer the user even more content— say, a Netflix or a Spotify subscription—t hat compensates you for the value of your data. Now, with the extra content on top of what
they already offer, the zero price that you pay would be right. The reason why the current zero price plus all your data doesn’t buy you all those ser vices and content is b ecause these companies do not face competition. Market power means that a firm offers too little in exchange for
what you pay, whether that payment is in currency or in valuable data that you provide.
Note that when there is competition, this market with free apps needs no explicit intervention in order to determine that the price is right or that the package of ser vices is adequate in exchange for your valuable data at zero price. Competitive pressure will ensure that the providers
either give you financial rebates or enough ser vices to keep you on their platform. The only intervention that is needed is for the regulator to ensure that there is enough competition between the platforms and on the platforms. That is of course easier said than done when there are
huge economies of scale in t hese social networks. But some proven regulatory solutions exist that ensure competition without losing the benefits of scale of the network. One such solution is the concept of interoperability, to which I turn later in this chapter.
Not only is your data buying you too l ittle in terms of ser vices: the main prob lem is that those companies who have and hoard the data use the same data to create barriers for competitors to enter. Big data for use with AI and machine learning (ML) technologies is an ideal tool to build
market power. And once the data moat is built, that market power is very hard to contest.
Where do we get the rocks and sand to fill in this moat? In economics lingo, data is nonrival. If one user consumes a rival good— say, food— no one e lse can consume it. But a nonrival good— whether it is an idea, data, or a walk in a noncongested park— does not preclude anyone e lse
from consuming that same good; the cost to an additional user is zero. If you find out about Newton’s law of universal gravitation, you know it and can explain it to someone else. If you are lucky you can sell it and make some money, but why would anyone pay for it if the laws are all over
the internet and in books, and it can be spread by word of mouth at no cost?
In fact, data is not protected by copyright,26 but owners can still keep the data private. That is where the value is. In order to encourage people to invest money in new ideas, most modern socie ties have a patent system, as we discussed earlier. It gives the creator temporary exclusivity
rights and therefore market power. A pharmaceutical company is rewarded with a fifteen- year patent a fter it invents a new drug, which allows it to sell the drug at a much higher price b ecause it has a monop oly. The profits from the monop oly are the carrot that pays for the huge
upfront investment to develop the drug. This is inefficient once the drug is discovered, but it provides the necessary incentives in order to have the drug at all. And after the patent expires, competitors enter the market and drive down the price of the drug.
So if information is free and you cannot stop anyone from copying it, then what is the prob lem with big data for AI applications? The problem is that information is only free if someone makes it public. If New- ton had hoarded the laws of gravitation we w ouldn’t have known about
them then, and they would have had a dif fer ent name as soon as someone else discovered them and made them public. The point is that despite that nonrival nature of data— that it can be consumed at no cost once it is made available—t he owners of the data are hoarding it. They do
every thing they can to keep the data under cover—in part because it costs them a lot of money to collect it, but predominantly to avoid letting competitors use the data to train their algorithms to compete. When Google made public their algorithms, it was neither a mistake nor altru-
ism. A truly generous act would have been to make their data available.
I therefore suggest a policy where those who collect our data to create market power are forced to make the anonymized data public. It is a sort of inverse data patent, similar to the traditional patent system as we know it now that was introduced in order to provide incentives to inno-
vate. The point of a patent is to ensure competition after the patent expires and the idea has received a just reward for the upfront investment.
The inverse data patent creates a similar temporary reward. The difference is in what happens when the patent runs out. The traditional patent’s knowledge has become freely available from the moment it was published or from the moment the first good was sold. That is why the law
protects the inventor from competitors who can freely copy that knowledge. When the patent runs out, the patent holder loses that protection. Instead, the inverse data patent has information that no one can freely copy. When the inverse data patent runs out, the holder of the
information must put the data in the public domain so that competitors can have f ree access to it. Versions of this exist in academic research. Authors of published papers must make their data and software available so that other researchers can replicate the results or use it to test
new hypotheses.
Firms like Uber that collected data from their driverless cars in Tempe, Arizona, get exclusive access to it for some time, and then they need to make the data publicly available for use by competing driverless operators. Like a patent, the firm that collects the data temporarily gets the
exclusive use of it. But it is the reverse of a patent because rather than granting exclusivity of an idea that can easily be copied, the inverse data patent takes away exclusivity of information that can easily be hidden.
The initial exclusivity ensures a temporary period of market power with higher prices and thus positive profits to pay for the initial costly investment. Afterward, however, because of the true nonrival nature of information, it would be available for f ree. And since we find strong evi-
dence that the rise of market power extends across all industries and sectors, not just tech, those policies on data sharing may apply to other sectors where market power is driven by data.
As with the patent system, there will be plenty of distorted incentive effects, and possibly even more lawsuits. The greatest challenge will be to prevent firms from tampering with the data to make it useless or, worse, to lead the user to the wrong conclusions. Imagine that the data from
driverless car accidents gives a 100 percent avoidance of an accident when swerving right, while only 50 percent when swerving left. Instead, if the data scientists tamper with the 273 cases on which this outcome is based such that it appears that veering off to the left causes no
accidents while veering off to the right c auses many accidents, then any com pany using that data will have disastrous accident numbers.
And even if there is no tampering with data, firms might gather and publish data that is of low value to competitors or that slows down their learning. Nonetheless, having access to more data in an environment where perverse incentives can be contained w ill be better than having
access to no data at all. And as with patents, the temporary gains from mono poly power w ill make it worthwhile to give the incentives to collect and publish the sufficient quality data.
Like most new technological innovations throughout history, AI and ML are power ful improvements that will make life easier and will eventually save us from doing menial and boring tasks. But like many other technologies of the past, this new technology has a tendency to concen-
trate resources in the hands of a few. With AI and ML, that resource is the data. The prob lem is not that there is too much data or that we cannot proc ess it; the prob lem is that a few have the data and others do not.
Unequal access to data creates huge scale advantages and, more importantly, it creates barriers to entry. As a result, the firms that own the data are able to sell their goods at prices well above cost, and t here w ill be no competitors that can come even close to getting a foot in the
door. This concentration of productive resources in the hands of a very few is already well under way. The castles of the big tech giants are already largely protected by a data moat. And while the customer may not see the immediate link with higher prices, advertisers are paying higher
prices for ads on Google, Facebook, and Instagram— and if advertisers are paying more to show you sneakers, you end up paying more to buy those sneakers.
Dealing with data in a clever manner may avoid the accumulation of market power, but this requires antitrust institutions that are effective.
Putting Back the Trust
Given the rise of market power that we have experienced in the past four de cades, the existing institutions have not
been able to stem the prevalence and growth of moats . There is plenty of work studying the history
and workings of antitrust in detail and highlighting the difficulties and pitfalls of the current institutions.
The bottom line is that the current focus on consumer welfare has not managed to rein in the rise of
market power. Beginning in the 1980s, antitrust enforcement has weakened, allowing mergers to go through
that shouldn’t have. At the same time, in the wake of disruptive technological change, highly efficient superstar firms have
emerged that exert excess market power.
That doesn’t mean that what firms do now is illegal. They operate within the legal framework, which includes building
moats and paying politicians to not pass legislation. As Arthur Daley, a character in the British crime drama The Minder, says: “Hitting little old
ladies over the head and stealing their handbags is crime. Every thing else is business.”27 It
does indicate, however, that there is
legislation and enforcement that can make the economy healthier.
Here, I propose concrete measures to reverse this ongoing trend. We can only be successful at reining in market power if
we completely re-examine competition policy. The main objectives of my proposals are the following:
First, we need to go beyond the impact of market power on consumer welfare. The competition authority
must also take into account the impact on all stakeholders— workers, suppliers, competitors—
everyone with something to gain or lose.
Second, we need to incorporate the economy-wide implications of market power, not just the impact at
the firm level. Even if Amazon is not lowering the wages of its own workers (i.e., it is not exerting monopsony
power), the fact that there are hundreds of firms with market power lowers labor demand, which in turn
affects the wage economy-wide—the falling tide. While putting workers on the boards of firms can
reduce the impact of monopsony power, workers on boards cannot stop the impact of market power on
economy-wide wages. That is also why social responsibility of firms will not resolve the problem. It can
only be resolved by reining in market power directly— not just for one firm, but for all firms in the economy.
Ex ante regulation sets blanket prohibitions that distort competition

Maher et al. 16, Partner at GSMA which is an industry organisation that represents the interests of
mobile network operators and former senior economist for the OECD and has held several faculty
positions at the University of Cambridge and Birkbeck College, October 2016, “Resetting competition
policy frameworks for the digital ecosystem,” https://www.gsma.com/publicpolicy/wp-
content/uploads/2016/10/GSMA_Resetting-Competition_Report_Oct-2016_60pp_WEBv2.pdf
Competition issues in the digital ecosystem show how important it is to take a more rigorous approach to
assessing quality, innovation and efficiency. Different analytical approaches can better identify the
potential non-price effects of mergers, including how a merger would change firms’ incentives and abilities to innovate. They
offer a clear exposition of any theory of harm or benefit and provide a range of approaches to weigh
opposing effects where mergers are expected to lead to price rises but also improvements in quality.
Finally, the high burden of proof applied to efficiencies is also likely to prevent some mergers from taking place that would bring benefits to
society and even to consumers. There is no compelling reason for authorities to impose a higher burden of proof on efficiencies than on
competition effects, although it is reasonable for authorities to discount claims that parties should be able to substantiate. Competition
authorities are improving how they verify efficiencies. Analytical approaches that can help include the use of economic, technical and industry
experts, evidence of similar efficiencies being realised in earlier transactions or in other markets (including references to the developing studies
on cost pass-through) and analytical techniques such as Data Envelopment Analysis and Compensating Marginal Cost Reduction.
Rebalancing ex ante and ex post regulation
The digital ecosystem is bringing together market participants that are subject to extensive ex ante
regulation as well as players from other sectors that are only subject to general ex post competition law.
Where these players compete with each other, the question arises of whether ex ante regulation is still
required and, if retained, whether it needs to be modified to avoid distortions and deterring
investment. In this section, we identify approaches to modernising ex ante regulation and recalibrating the balance
between ex ante regulation and ex post competition law enforcement .
COMPARING EX ANTE AND EX POST REGULATION
Sectoral regulation and competition law were developed to deal with problems that might arise from market
failure and/or market power. Ex ante regulation of electronic communications was to address the existing market power of
incumbent operators as well as sector-specific objectives, including the efficient use of spectrum and achieving universal access to
telecommunications, access to emergency services and telecoms numbering.130 Modern competition law was, particularly with the US
Sherman Act, to address the growth of large conglomerates that risked creating market power by restraining and attempting to monopolise
trade. In
restraining market power, there is a potential for competition law to be a substitute for ex ante
regulation. Considering the relative merits of each can provide guidance about the circumstances best suited to each of them.
Where a firm has existing and enduring market power, then regulation is likely to be more effective at preventing monopoly pricing. The
appropriate level of a price cap, for example, can be estimated using economic and technical expertise and may require judgments such as
balancing static and dynamic efficiency. The way in which fixed and common costs are to be recovered is often an important and contentious
matter. A court without specialist expertise may have difficulty determining efficient price levels and in monitoring day-to-day compliance. In
addition, using competition law to address monopoly pricing would put businesses at risk of being penalised even where there is significant
uncertainty over the appropriate price level.
While there is a case for ex ante regulation where there are enduring sources of market power, the role
for ex ante regulation is likely to be limited.
• Regulation should be targeted at the economic activity where there is no potential for competition and should allow for competition in other
parts of the value chain, as competition will be more effective than regulation in leading to innovative new services and ways of delivering
existing services over time.
• The potential for competition should be assessed over a sufficiently long timeframe, with milestones established for the removal of regulation
to attract new entry if possible. This would help to avoid unnecessary, self-perpetuating regulation.
• The benefit of regulation that can result from correcting market failures should be weighed against the
costs. Careful consideration should be given to the risk of regulatory failure and associated costs
resulting from setting prices inefficiently or mandating a particular quality level that result in fewer
offers when customers would benefit from more differentiated offers.
• Where investment is subject to (e.g. significant ex ante risk highly uncertain demand or the use of an unproven
technology), then it may be necessary to refrain from regulation for a period of time, due to the difficulty of
setting terms and conditions that will not damage the incentive for future investment .131
• Where the service is provided to customers with significant countervailing bargaining power, ex ante regulation may not be needed to
prevent the use of market power.132
Ex post competition law enforcement is much better suited to dynamic markets, where the risks of
regulatory failure are high. Competition law is inherently more flexible than ex ante regulation because it
does not specify what firms should do, but only what they should not do. Competition law therefore
allows firms the freedom to set terms and conditions within a potentially wide range of acceptable
behaviour. This can be important in digital markets, where markets may change rapidly
2AC
Adv 1
AT: LIO Turn
Chinese dominance causes regional instability---nuclear war.
Jennifer Lind 3/1/18---Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, "Life in China's Asia:
What Regional Hegemony Would Look Like,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 97, Issue 2
For now, the United States remains the dominant power in East Asia, but China is quickly closing the
gap. Although an economic crisis or domestic political turmoil could derail China's rise, if current trends continue, China will before long supplant the United States as the region's
economic, military, and political hegemon.
As that day approaches, U.S. allies and partners in the region, such as Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and South
Korea, will start to face some difficult questions. Namely, should they step up their individual defense efforts
and increase their cooperation with other countries in the region, or can they safely decide to accept Chinese dominance, looking to Beijing as
they have looked to Washington for the past half century?
It may be tempting to believe that China will be a relatively benign regional hegemon. Economic
interdependence, one argument goes, should restrain Chinese aggression: because the legitimacy of the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rests on economic growth , which depends on trade, Beijing would maintain
peaceful relations with its neighbors. Moreover, China claims to be a different sort of great power. Chinese officials and scholars regularly decry interventionism
and reject the notion of "spheres of influence" as a Cold War relic. Chinese President Xi Jinping has said that his country has "never engaged in
colonialism or aggression" thanks to its "peace-loving cultural tradition ." In this view, life in China's Asia would not be so different
from what it is today.
But this is not how regional hegemons behave. Great powers typically dominate their regions in their quest
for security. They develop and wield tremendous economic power. They build massive militaries, expel
external rivals, and use regional institutions and cultural programs to entrench their influence. Because
hegemons fear that neighboring countries will allow external rivals to establish a military foothold , they
develop a profound interest in the domestic politics of their neighborhood, and even seek to spread their culture to draw other countries
closer.
China is already following the strategies of previous regional hegemons . It is using economic coercion
to bend other countries to its will . It is building up its military to ward off challengers. It is intervening in
other countries' domestic politics to get friendlier policies. And it is investing massively in educational
and cultural programs to enhance its soft power. As Chinese power and ambition grow, such efforts will only increase. China's neighbors must start
debating how comfortable they are with this future, and what costs they are willing to pay to shape or forestall it.
ECONOMIC CENTRALITY
Over the past few decades, China has become the number one trading partner and principal export destination for most countries in East Asia. Beijing has struck a
number of regional economic deals , including free-trade agreements with Australia, Singapore, South Korea, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and
others. Through such arrangements, which exclude the United States, Beijing seeks to create a Chinese-dominated East Asian community. Beijing is also building an institutional infrastructure
to increase its influence at the expense of U.S.-led institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, and Japanese-led ones, such as the Asian Development
Bank. In 2014, China, along with Brazil, Russia, and India, set up the $100 billion New Development Bank, which is headquartered in Shanghai. In 2015, China founded the $100 billion Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank, which 80 countries have now joined. Furthermore, Xi's much-heralded Belt and Road initiative will promote Chinese trade and financial cooperation
throughout the region and provide massive Chinese investment in regional infrastructure and natural resources. The China Development Bank has already committed $250 billion in loans to
the project.
Such policies mimic the economic strategies of previous regional hegemons . China was the predominant economic and military
power in East Asia until the nineteenth century. It granted or withheld trade privileges according to an elaborate system of tribute, in which other countries had to send diplomatic missions,
bestow gifts, and kowtow to the Chinese emperor. The Chinese then determined the prices and quantities of all goods traded. Imperial China consolidated its economic power by investing in
agriculture and railroads, extracting minerals, and encouraging close commercial integration throughout the region.
In Latin America, the United States followed the same playbook to establish itself as the region's central economic player. In the nineteenth century, American firms flocked to the region in
search of fruit, minerals, sugar, and tobacco. The U.S. company United Fruit managed to gain control of the entire fruit export trade in Central America. Finance was another powerful tool; as
the Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano has argued, a U.S. "banking invasion" diverted local capital to U.S. firms. Washington encouraged American banks to assume the debts of European
creditors to minimize the influence of European rivals. For almost 100 years, Washington used diplomacy to advance its economic interests through initiatives promoting U.S. regional trade
and investment, such as the Big Brother policy in the 1880s, "dollar diplomacy" in the early 1900s, and the Alliance for Progress in the 1960s.
The United States also built a regional institutional architecture to advance its agenda. In 1948, it created the Organization of American States (headquartered in Washington, D.C.) to promote
regional security and cooperation. American influence ensured that the OAs remained silent on, or even legitimized, various U.S. military and political interventions in Latin America. Other
development institutions, including the IMF, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Export-Import Bank of the United
States, also advanced U.S. interests. Through "tied aid," such organizations required sponsored projects to hire U.S. vendors. The IMF, as Galeano has argued, was "born in the United States,
headquartered in the United States, and at the service of the United States."
Another regional hegemon, Japan, pursued similar strategies in its empire that dominated the region in the early twentieth century. Vowing to eject the Western colonial powers, Tokyo
declared itself the head of a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere." To feed its industrial economy and military, Tokyo extracted raw materials from countries it conquered. To promote
Japan's centrality, and to prevent economic activities by rival countries, it reformed and managed local economies in a regional network, standardizing the region's currency in a "yen bloc" and
dispatching Japanese banks throughout the area so that they controlled the majority of the region's bank deposits. Tokyo also created the Southern Development Bank, which provided
financial services and printed currency in occupied territories.
Similarly, in Eastern Europe after World War II, the Soviet Union relied on economic and financial statecraft to dominate the region. Moscow blocked all trade with Western Europe and
forbade Eastern European states from accepting aid under the 1948 Marshall Plan. Instead, it created the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance to manage and integrate the regional
economy. Soviet investment, trade agreements, and trade credits made Eastern European countries economically dependent on Moscow, both as their primary export market and as their
supplier of raw materials and energy. And by selling raw materials at below-market prices, Moscow encouraged local political leaders to become dependent on its subsidies.
Economic dominance lets regional hegemons use economic coercion to advance their agendas. In Latin America, the United States has long sought to coerce countries through sanctions. In
addition to the long-standing (and failed) U.S. embargo of Cuba, Washington used financial pressure to weaken President Salvador Allende in Chile in the 1970s and embargoed Nicaragua to
undermine the Sandinista government in 1985. Similarly, in Eastern Europe, Moscow sought to control independent-minded leaders, imposing sanctions against Yugoslavia in 1948, Albania in
1961, and Romania in 1964.
Beijing has already begun to employ such economic coercion. In 2017, China punished South Korea and the
Japanese-South Korean business conglomerate Lotte for cooperating with the U.S.-built THAAD missile defense
program. (Lotte had sold the land on which THAAD was deployed to the South Korean government.) Beijing banned Chinese tour groups from
visiting South Korea, Chinese regulators closed 80 percent of Lotte supermarkets and other Korean-
owned businesses (ostensibly for fire-code violations), and state-run media urged boycotts of Korean products. Beijing has also used economic
coercion against Japan (banning the export of Chinese rare-earth metals to the country after a 2009
ship collision) and Norway (embargoing Norwegian fish exports after the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010). And in 2016, when Mongolia hosted the
Dalai Lama, Beijing imposed extra fees on commodities moving through the country and froze all diplomatic activity--including negotiations about a $4 billion Chinese loan. "We hope that
Mongolia has taken this lesson to heart," the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement. Apparently it has: the Mongolian government has announced that the spiritual leader will not be
invited back.
Such coercion will be less necessary in the future as leaders preemptively adjust their policies with Beijing in mind. Consider the Philippines: in the past, the country has stood up to China--for
example, filing a complaint about Chinese territorial assertiveness with an international tribunal at The Hague in 2013. But more recently, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who has
received $24 billion in investment pledges from Beijing, has warmed relations with China and distanced his country from the United States.
THE PURSUIT OF MILITARY HEGEMONY
China is also expanding its regional military reach . Since the 1990s, Chinese military spending has
Following the example of previous hegemons,
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) has adopted the doctrine

soared, and the CCP is modernizing weaponry and reforming its military organizations and doctrine.
of "anti-access, area denial" to push the U.S. military away from its shores and airspace. China has also built the
region's largest coast guard and controls a vast militia of civilian fishing vessels. In 2017, the PLA opened its first overseas military base in Djibouti; it will likely build more bases along the
African east coast and the Indian Ocean in coming years. Meanwhile, in the South China Sea, China has built six large islands that house air force bases, missile shelters, and radar and
Already, the U.S. military finds itself constrained by the expanding bubble of Chinese air
communications facilities.
defenses, by China's growing ability to find and strike U.S. naval vessels, and by an increased missile
threat to U.S. air bases and ports.
Beijing is using these capabilities to more forcefully assert its territorial claims. By transiting disputed waters and massing
ships there, Beijing is pressuring Japan militarily over a cluster of small islands called the Diaoyu by China and the Senkaku by Japan. Elsewhere, to
deny access to disputed areas, the PLA swarms fishing and coast guard vessels, and fires water cannons
at other countries' ships. Last summer, after asserting ownership of an oil-rich area in Vietnam's
exclusive economic zone, Beijing threatened to use military force if Vietnam did not stop drilling.
Vietnam stopped drilling.
Contemporary China's quest for regional military dominance follows the behavior of previous regional hegemons, including China itself. As the historian Peter Perdue has argued, modern China is a product of invasions that subdued all of modern Xinjiang and Mongolia, and reached Tibet,
as well. Chinese dynasties, he has written, "never shrank from the use of force," including the "righteous extermination" of rival states and rebels. Throughout Asia, Chinese military garrisons subdued invaders and pirates.
Subsequent hegemons dominated their regions through military force, too. Starting in the late nineteenth century, the United States began to build what would become the Western Hemisphere's preeminent military. In that period, the United States acquired territory through numerous
wars against Mexico and Spain. Over the next few decades (often to advance the United States' commercial interests), U.S. forces invaded Latin American countries more than 20 times, most often the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, and Nicaragua. During the Cold War, the United
States repeatedly used military force to counter leftist movements in Latin America: it blockaded Cuba in 1962, sent troops to the Dominican Republic in 1965, mined Nicaraguan harbors in the 1980s, and invaded Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989.
Japan also built and maintained its empire through military force. Its nineteenth-century military modernization yielded stunning victories over China and Russia. Through these and other military campaigns, Japan seized territories such as Korea and Taiwan and wrested colonial
possessions from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The Japanese military then administered the empire, fighting counterinsurgencies and suppressing independence movements.
In Europe after World War II, the Soviet Union dominated its sphere of influence with the region's most powerful army. It stationed troops in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, and Poland. To shape the region to its liking, the Kremlin was willing to use force. It dispatched Soviet
troops to quell uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
These hegemons did not tolerate the presence of rival great powers in their regions. Likewise, China today is chafing against the U.S. presence in Asia and actively working to undermine it. Chinese officials and defense white papers criticize U.S. alliances as outdated and destabilizing. Xi
himself, calling for a new "Asian security architecture," has argued that these relationships fail to address the region's complex security needs. Meanwhile, by cultivating close ties with Seoul and encouraging the Philippines' tilt toward China, Beijing has sought to draw U.S allies away.
NOSY NEIGHBOR
Beijing is also interfering in the domestic politics of other countries. Citing China specifically, Canadian intelligence officials have warned of foreign agents who might be serving as provincial cabinet ministers and government employees. And in 2016, a scandal erupted in Australia after it
was revealed that Sam Dastyari, a senator who had defended Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, had financial ties to a Chinese firm, prompting new laws banning foreign political donations.
Historically, regional hegemons have intervened extensively in domestic politics to support friendly governments and undermine parties and leaders perceived as hostile. Within China's tribute system, the emperor delegated the administration of subservient states to local leaders, an
approach known as "using barbarians to govern barbarians." But local independence went only so far. As the sixteenth-century statesman Chang Chu-cheng said of such vassals, "Just like dogs, if they wag their tails, bones will be thrown to them; if they bark wildly, they will be beaten
with sticks; after the beating, if they submit again, bones will be thrown to them again; after the bones, if they bark again, then more beating."
Japan similarly intervened in domestic politics during its imperial heyday. In the Philippines, for example, it abolished all political parties except for the pro-Japanese one. Elsewhere, it delegated control to friendly local leaders and police, and trained such leaders at institutes in Japan. If
officials in China, Korea, and Manchuria did not cooperate, Tokyo relied on a Japanese paramilitary organization that intimidated, blackmailed, and assassinated local leaders.
For its part, the United States meddled in Latin American politics countless times. Through the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, Washington claimed the right to intervene in its neighbors' affairs. It relied on covert and overt, violent and nonviolent methods to support
anticommunist leaders and to undermine or depose leftist ones. The U.S. diplomat Robert Olds explained the approach in blunt terms in 1927: "Central America has always understood that governments which we recognize and support stay in power, while those which we do not
recognize and support fall." During the Cold War, the U.S. military and the CIA funded, armed, and trained anticommunist forces throughout Latin America at institutions such as the U.S. Army School of the Americas in Panama. U.S.-trained forces sought to depose leftist governments in
Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Washington also supported coups in Guatemala in 1954 and Chile in 1973.
Moscow was similarly busy in Eastern Europe. After World War II, the Soviet Union installed communist parties in its neighbors' governments, in which advancement depended on loyalty to Moscow. Under Stalin, Soviet secret police harassed, tortured, and murdered opposition leaders.
After Stalin, the Soviets relied on subtler tactics, such as bringing foreign elites to train in communist party schools and to build networks with Soviet and regional politicians. Through the Brezhnev Doctrine, Moscow claimed the authority to intervene in its neighbors' politics in order to
defend socialism from hostile forces.
PLAYING HARDBALL FOR SOFT POWER
China today is seeking to increase its influence in East Asia and beyond through extensive educational and cultural activities. The media is central to this effort. The state-run media organizations Xinhua and the China Global Television Network have bureaus all over the world. Hollywood
studios regularly seek Chinese funding for their projects, as well as distribution rights in China's vast market. Wary of offending the CCP, studios have started preemptively censoring their content. Censorship has also begun to infect the publishing industry. To gain access to China's vast
market, publishers are increasingly required to censor books and articles containing specific words or phrases (for example, "Taiwan," "Tibet," and "Cultural Revolution"). Prominent publishing houses, including Springer Nature--the world's largest academic book publisher--have
succumbed to Beijing's demands and are increasingly self-censoring.
Beijing also promotes Chinese influence in education. China has become the world's third most popular destination for foreign study, welcoming more than 440,000 students from over 200 countries in 2016. Many students receive support from the Chinese government. Overseas, in 142
countries, Beijing has created more than 500 Confucius Institutes to promote Chinese language and culture. A study by the U.S.-based National Association of Scholars argues that Confucius Institutes are decidedly nontransparent about their connections to the CCP. Their teachers must
observe CCP restrictions on free speech and are pressured to "avoid sensitive topics," such as human rights, Tibet, and Taiwan.
The CCP also infiltrates college campuses abroad. Beijing enlists members of the 60-million-strong Chinese diaspora: at universities around the world, Chinese Students and Scholars Associations demonstrate in support of visiting Chinese leaders and protest the Dalai Lama and other
speakers the CCP deems hostile. Beijing also monitors and silences Chinese critics abroad by mobilizing harassment on social media and by threatening their families back home. In Australia, concerns about Chinese interference and espionage at universities led intelligence officials to
issue warnings about an "insidious threat" from foreign governments seeking to shape local public opinion.
Past regional hegemons similarly promoted their influence through culture and education, and by co-opting leaders of civil society. As the China expert Suisheng Zhao writes, "Chinese culture was seen as a great lasting power to bridge periods of disunity and to infuse new governments...
with values supportive of the traditional Chinese order." China spread its language, literature, Confucian philosophy, and bureaucratic traditions to Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and other countries. Chinese emperors also followed the advice of one minister in the Han dynasty who proposed
subduing barbarians with "five baits": silk clothing and carriages, sumptuous food, entertainments and female attendants, mansions with slaves, and imperial favors such as banquets and awards.
U.S. hegemony in Latin America also relied heavily on soft power. In 1953, the U.S. government created the U.S. Information Agency, which, according to President Dwight Eisenhower, would show countries that U.S. objectives "are in harmony with and will advance their legitimate
aspirations for freedom, progress, and peace." U.S. TV stations started Latin American channels that broadcast American films and programs. The U.S. government built news agencies and radio stations and infiltrated or intimidated opposition media outlets. In Chile and the Dominican
Republic, for example, the CIA and the USIA engaged in an intense propaganda effort against undesirable political candidates, spreading misinformation and silencing opposition media.
Likewise, imperial Japan created the East Asia Development League to shape regional perceptions and guide the activities of Japanese people living in the empire. Tokyo controlled civil society by creating and infiltrating organizations such as youth groups, martial arts clubs, student
unions, secret societies, and religious organizations. Its Greater East Asia Cultural Policy sought to eradicate Western culture. For example, Tokyo banned Coca-Cola on the grounds that it had been invented "to bring the people under the soul- and mind-shattering influence of the
insidious drug, and so to make them more apt for Anglo-American exploitation." Tokyo prohibited the use of European languages and established Japanese as the area's official language, dispatching hundreds of teachers throughout Asia. Japan transmitted its culture through radio
programs, newspapers, and comic books, as did cultural institutes that sponsored exhibitions, lectures, and films.
The Soviet Union secured its influence in Eastern Europe through extensive cultural activities. As the writer Anne Applebaum details in her book Iron Curtain, Soviet-backed communist parties took over radio stations and newspapers and intimidated or shut down independent media. The
Soviets created influential youth organizations and co-opted writers, artists, and other intellectual leaders by offering well-paid jobs, lavish houses with servants, and free education for their children.
Moscow also created a vast organization known as VOKS (a Russian acronym for All-Union Society for Cultural Relations With Foreign Countries) to disseminate Soviet ideas and culture and bring Western intellectuals under communist influence. VOKS brought thousands of visitors to the
Soviet Union and sponsored scientific research, filmmaking, athletics, ballet, music, and publishing. It also spent lavishly at international fairs and expositions--such as the Brussels World's Fair of 1958--to showcase Soviet technology and culture.
CONTEMPLATING LIFE IN CHINA'S ASIA
When examining China's current behavior in the context of previous regional hegemonies, some
common themes stand out. First, economic interdependence has a dark side. Although interdependence raises the cost of conflict, it also
creates leverage. China's centrality in regional trade and finance increases its coercive power, which
Beijing has already begun to exercise. Second, history shows that regional hegemons meddle extensively in their neighbors' domestic politics. Indeed,
Beijing has already begun to reverse its much-touted policy of nonintervention. As China grows
stronger, its neighbors can expect Beijing to increasingly interfere in their domestic politics .
East Asian countries need to decide whether this is something they are willing to accept. In particular,
Japan, the only country with the potential power to balance China, faces an important choice. Since World War II, Japan has adhered to a highly restrained national
security policy, spending just one percent of its GDP on defense. For obvious historical reasons, the Japanese people are suspicious of military statecraft, and they worry about a lagging
economy and the expense of caring for an aging population. They may decide to continue devoting their wealth to butter rather than guns.
Beijing and Tokyo are already

This would be a perfectly valid choice, but before making it, the Japanese people should contemplate their life in China's Asia.
embroiled in a bitter territorial dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. To gain control of the islands,
weaken the U.S.-Japanese relationship, and advance other interests, Beijing can be expected to use
greater military and economic coercion and to meddle in Japanese politics . Beyond a hegemon's normal reasons to intervene,
China harbors deep historical resentment toward Japan. Imagine if the United States had actually hated Cuba.
If Japan decided that Chinese hegemony would be unacceptable, its national security policy would need
to change. The United States' global interests and commitments allow Washington to devote only some
of its resources to Asia. It would not have the capability, let alone the will, to balance Beijing alone.
Japan would need to become more like West Germany: a U.S. ally that, although outgunned and
directly threatened by a hostile great power , mobilized substantial military might and was a true partner with the United
States in securing its national defense.
Hegemony sustains peace---A transition now causes war---without liberal institutions

violent autocracies rise to power
Robert Kagan 18, Stephen & Barbara Friedman Senior Fellow with the Project on International Order
and Strategy in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings and graduated Yale University and Harvard
University’s Kennedy School of Government and holds a doctorate in American history from American
University, 9/7/18, “The Cost of American Retreat”, https://www.wsj.com/articles/thecost-of-american-
retreat-1536330449
It all sounds so sensible. The problem is that, after

decades of living within the protective bubble of the liberal world
order, we have forgotten what the world “as it is” looks like . To believe that the quarter-century after
the Cold War has been a disaster is to forget what disaster means in world affairs.
Which other quarter-century would we prefer? The first quarter of the 20th century included World War
I and the birth of communism and fascism. The second saw the triumph of Hitler and Stalin, the
Ukrainian famine, the Holocaust, World War II and the invention and use of nuclear weapons. Even the
quarter-century beginning in 1950 included the Korean War, the Vietnam War, three Arab-Israeli Wars
and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Perhaps our biggest failure is our unwillingness to imagine that things could look again as they did in the first half of the 20th century, with a
few besieged democracies hanging on in a world dominated by dictatorships. Aggression was the norm then, not the exception, and every
weapon invented by scientists was eventually put to use.
It should be hard to have a 1930s mentality today, since we know what happened next. But we comfort ourselves that those past horrors
ambitious
cannot be repeated. We see no Hitlers or Stalins on the horizon, forgetting that our forebears did not see them either. Those
tyrants rose to power at a time when they faced few constraints: No nation or group of nations was
willing or able to sustain an international order of any kind, much less one that might resist them.
Today we know that Vladimir Putin has grand ambitions but not yet the capacity to realize them . He
reveres Stalin, but he is not Stalin. What would a less constrained Putin do? A Russia that restored its Soviet
and imperial borders would be a far different player on the international scene than the Russia now
confined east of Ukraine and the Baltic nations.
Todaya more powerful China, with a new premier-for-life, is moving away from the cautious foreign
policies of the Deng era. We cannot yet know what an even more powerful and less constrained China will
want or do as it expands its regional and global influence , especially if it does so by military means.
We should also recall that the European

peace established since the Cold War is less than three decades old. Prior
to World War II, wars in Europe were brought on by a combination of growing nationalism, collapsing
democracies and global instability, all of which are visible today. Those who oppose the American promotion of
democracy abroad generally have non-Western nations in mind, but let’s not have too much faith in the West. Few of Europe’s democracies
date back before World War II. It was in the West that fascism and communism arose, and it is in the West that democracy is at risk once again.
The emerging consensus today is that the U.S. has been doing too much. But what if we have been doing too little? We wanted to believe that
the course of history was taking us away from the war, tyranny and destruction of the first half of the 20th century, but it may be taking us back
toward them, absent some prodigious effort on our part to prevent such regression. Those who call themselves realists today suggest that we
can do less in the world and get more out of it. It is a lovely fiction. Our real choice is between maintaining the liberal world
order, with all its moral and material costs, or letting it collapse and preparing for the catastrophes that
are likely to follow.
AT: Africa
Chinese influence in Africa increases poverty---puts everyone is debt
Jevans Nyabiage 19, Journalist Quoting Lots of Quallified People, Are Chinese loans putting Africa on
the debt-trap express?, South China Morning Post,
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3020394/are-chinese-infrastructure-loans-
putting-africa-debt-trap
“If the loans are going to be fast – the due diligence will not be as rigorous. Chinese project selection
mixes political with economic considerations. So, while a project may not make as much economic
sense, it may pay political dividends,” he said. He said non-transparent processes would invite abuse,
be they Chinese, Western or African. Other observers say the question of opacity is more directly related
to China’s own economic system. Howard French, author of China’s Second Continent: How a Million
Migrants are Building a New Empire in Africa, said China has very limited transparency and public
accountability in its own domestic processes. “So it would be unusual to expect that China would
introduce greater transparency and accountability in its dealings with African countries than it is used
to at home – that is, unless African governments insist on it,” French said. “And this is where African
governance comes in. African states should insist on contract transparency but often don’t do so
because that offers leaders plentiful opportunities for graft.” David Shinn, professor of international
relations at George Washington University in Washington, agreed that China’s lack of loan transparency
was a huge problem and increased the risk of corruption on both the African and Chinese sides. But he
also said that in some cases, African governments might have negotiated poorly. “This is, however, the
responsibility of the African government. I don’t think China is purposely trying to encourage African
debts in order to gain leverage,” Shinn said. “In fact, China is becoming more careful about its lending
because it is concerned it has made too much credit available to some African countries.” Huang
Hongxiang, director of China House, a Nairobi-based consultancy that helps Chinese in Africa integrate
better, agreed, saying the Chinese government needs to communicate more about projects in Africa but
African countries also have a bigger part to play in ensuring better deals. “On commercial viability,
accountability, transparency and governance, I believe the responsibility does not lie with China, the US
or the West but in the hands of African countries,” he said. Wherever the fault lies, one thing is clear
when money is wasted on ill-designed projects that have little to no economic return, according to
Opalo. “The lack of planning and transparency creates default risks … [and] African taxpayers will be
left holding the bag.”
AT: Populism
No populism impact
James Miller 18, professor of liberal studies and politics, and faculty director of creative publishing and
critical journalism at the New School in New York, 10/11/18, “Could populism actually be good for
democracy?”, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/oct/11/could-populism-actually-be-good-for-
democracy
Current affairs may seem especially bleak, but fears about democracy are nothing new. At the zenith of
direct democracy in ancient Athens, in the fifth century BC, one critic called it a “patent absurdity” – and so it seemed to
most political experts from Aristotle to Edmund Burke, who considered democracy “the most shameless thing in the world”. As the American
founding father John Adams warned, “there never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide”.
For almost 2,000 years, most western political theorists agreed with Aristotle, Burke and Adams: nobody could imagine seriously advocating
democracy as an ideal form of government. It was only at the end of the 18th century that democracy reappeared as a modern political ideal,
during the French Revolution.
Ever since, popular insurrections and revolts in the name of democracy have become a recurrent feature of global politics. It needs to be
stressed: these revolts are not an unfortunate blemish on the peaceful forward march toward a more just society; they form the heart
and soul of modern democracy as a living reality.
It is a familiar story: out of the blue, it seems, a crowd pours into a city square or gathers at a barnstorming rally held by a spellbinding orator,
to protest against hated institutions, to express rage at the betrayals of the ruling class, to seize control of public spaces. To
label these
frequently disquieting
moments of collective freedom “populist”, in a pejorative sense, is to misunderstand
a constitutive feature of the modern democratic project.
Yet these episodes of collective self-assertion are invariably fleeting, and often provoke a political backlash in turn. The political disorder they
create stands in tension with the need for a more stable, peaceful form of collective participation. That is one reason why many modern
democrats have tried to create representative institutions that can – through liberal protections for the freedom of religion, and of the press,
and the civil rights of minorities – both express, and tame, the will of a sovereign people.
Thus the great French philosopher Condorcet in 1793 proposed creating a new, indirect form of self-rule, linking local assemblies to a national
government. “By ingrafting representation upon democracy,” as Condorcet’s friend Tom Paine put it, the people could exercise their power
both directly, in local assemblies, and indirectly, by provisionally entrusting some of their powers to elected representatives.
Under the pressure of events, another ardent French democrat, Robespierre, went further and defended the need, amid a civil war, for a
temporary dictatorship – precisely to preserve the possibility of building a more enduring form of representative democracy, once its enemies
had been defeated and law and order could be restored.
But there was a problem with these efforts to establish a modern democracy at scale . Especially in a large nation
such as France or the US, representative institutions – and, even worse, dictatorial regimes claiming a popular mandate – inevitably risk
frustrating anyone hoping to play a more direct role in political decision-making.
This means that the

democratic project, both ancient and modern, is inherently unstable. The modern promise of
popular sovereignty, repeatedly frustrated, produces recurrent efforts at asserting the collective power of a
people. If observers like the apparent result of such an effort, they may hail it as a renaissance of the
democratic spirit; if they do not, they are liable to dismiss these episodes of collective self-assertion as
mob rule, or populism run amok.
No matter. Even
though the post-second world war consensus over the meaning and value of liberal
democratic institutions seems more fragile than ever – polls show that trust in elected representatives
has rarely been lower – democracy as furious dissent flourishes, in vivid and vehement outbursts of
anger at remote elites and shadowy enemies.
Adv 2
2AC – Info War – Democracy
Digital authoritarianism causes info warfare
Kemal Derviş 19, Senior Fellow at Brookings, Global Economy and Development, 5/29/19, “Closing the
global governance gap,” https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/closing-the-global-governance-gap/
Political institutions have not kept pace with tech nological change and the resulting growth in markets. When ordinary
Egyptians, having organized themselves via social media, rallied in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and toppled former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, it
seemed that technology would necessarily boost democracy. But it soon became clear that these digital
platforms could easily be co-
opted by authoritarian governments or terrorists, and used to spread false news, influence electoral
processes, and create deep divisions and confusion in societies.
Extinction---threat multiplier
John Mecklin 1/23, Editor, Science and Security Board, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 1/23/20,
“Closer than ever: It is 100 seconds to midnight,” https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/
To: Leaders and citizens of the world
Re: Closer than ever: It is 100 seconds to midnight
Date: January 23, 2020
Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers—nuclear war and climate change—that are
compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society’s ability
to respond. The international security situation is dire, not just because these threats exist, but because world leaders have allowed the
international political infrastructure for managing them to erode.
In the nuclear realm, national leaders have ended or undermined several major arms control treaties and negotiations during the last year,
creating an environment conducive to a renewed nuclear arms race, to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and to lowered barriers to
nuclear war. Political conflicts
regarding nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea remain unresolved and are, if
anything, worsening. US-Russia cooperation on arms control and disarmament is all but nonexistent.
Public awareness of the climate crisis grew over the course of 2019, largely because of mass protests by young people around the world. Just
the same, governmental action on climate change still falls far short of meeting the challenge at hand. At UN climate meetings last year,
national delegates made fine speeches but put forward few concrete plans to further limit the carbon dioxide emissions that are disrupting
Earth’s climate. This limited political response came during a year when the effects of manmade climate change were manifested by one of the
warmest years on record, extensive wildfires, and quicker-than-expected melting of glacial ice.
Continued corruption of the information ecosphere on which democracy and public decision making
depend has heightened the nuclear and climate threats. In the last year, many governments used cyber-
enabled disinformation campaigns to sow distrust in institutions and among nations, undermining
domestic and international efforts to foster peace and protect the planet.
This situation—two major threats to human civilization, amplified by sophisticated, technology-propelled propaganda—would be serious
enough if leaders around the world were focused on managing the danger and reducing the risk of catastrophe. Instead, over the last two
years, we have seen influential leaders denigrate and discard the most effective methods for addressing complex threats—international
agreements with strong verification regimes—in favor of their own narrow interests and domestic political gain. By undermining
cooperative, science- and law-based approaches to managing the most urgent threats to humanity, these
leaders have helped to create a situation that will, if unaddressed, lead to catastrophe, sooner
rather than later.
Faced with this daunting threat landscape and a new willingness of political leaders to reject the negotiations and institutions that can protect
civilization over the long term, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board today moves the Doomsday Clock 20 seconds
closer to midnight—closer to apocalypse than ever. In so doing, board members are explicitly warning leaders and citizens around the world
that the international security situation is now more dangerous than it has ever been, even at the height of the Cold War.
Civilization-ending nuclear war—whether started by design, blunder, or simple miscommunication—is a

genuine possibility. Climate change that could devastate the planet is undeniably happening. And for a variety of reasons that include a
corrupted and manipulated media environment, democratic governments and other institutions that should be working to address these
threats have failed to rise to the challenge.
The Bulletin believes that human beings can manage the dangers posed by the technology that humans create. Indeed, in the 1990s leaders in
the United States and the Soviet Union took bold actions that made nuclear war markedly less likely—and as a result the Bulletin moved the
minute hand of the Doomsday Clock the farthest it has been from midnight.
2AC – AT China Peaceful in Cyber
Chinese cyber policy isn’t defensive, and if it is, misperceptions still escalate
Amy Chang 14, Research Associate at the Center for a New American Security, December 2014,
“Warring State: China’s Cybersecurity Strategy,” https://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/cybersecurity-
capacity/system/files/Warring%20State%20-%20China%27s%20cybersecurity%20strategy.pdf
Chinese discourse on the use of network and information technology in the military has existed for decades, but the major turning point in
China’s approach to information technology and information warfare arose from the United States’ employment of advanced military
technology in the Gulf War.85 China
has since strongly emphasized the importance of information and
communications technology for the future of warfighting, aspiring to prevail in “local wars under informatized conditions
by 2050.”86
Foundations for considering China’s network strategy are rooted the PLA’s broader strategic literature, such as the Military Strategic Guidelines
(军事战略方针, junshi zhanlüe fangzhen) and The Science of Military Strategy (战略学, zhanlüe xue), government initiatives, such as Hu
Jintao’s New Historic Missions (新的历史使命, xinde lishi shiming), and the National Defense White Papers.
In these texts, military strategists have explored strategies to exploit the network domain in both offensive
and defensive scenarios. Because of different strategic cultures, military literature does not clearly distinguish
between defensive and offensive measures, and thus what the United States or other foreign actors deem
offensive may be interpreted as defensive by China. The principle of “active defense,” for example, which Mao
Zedong referred to as warfare that “consists of the alternate use of the defensive and offensive ,” is one that continues to
stoke analytic debate among U.S. policy and academic communities.87
As can be implied from PLA terminology and definitions of conditions for information security, China’s military network
strategy has components intended for both peacetime and in times of war, including both domestic scenarios and
foreign contingencies. The Chinese interpretation of network security not only includes regulation of
information and network assets, such as Internet content within its realm of authority, but also
considers military conflict with adversaries, as indicated by China’s acceptance of United Nations (U.N.) international law
in the cyber realm and its response to major U.S. strategic shifts in cybersecurity (e.g., the establishment of Cyber
Command). As China scholar Michael Swaine argued, civilian and military elites both share support for “pragmatic, development-oriented
policies designed to sustain or expand social order, regime unity, social prosperity and national power and prestige.”88
Network operations “are expected to play an important role” in military scenarios involving Taiwan,
other territorial or maritime conflicts, or the United States.89 Chinese strategists have hypothesized that with
informatization “a new pattern of cyberized war is going to appear” and the People’s Liberation Army is aware of potential
applications of information technology in a wartime scenario such as in information warfare (i.e.,
attacking an adversary over network connections) and in command, control, communications, computer, intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) operations.90 Chapters in The Science of Military Strategy discuss the evolution and development of
high technology use in war and the importance of the information domain to national security and development interests.91 The recently
updated 2013 Science of Military Strategy dedicates an entire section on conflict in the network domain and discusses types of military conflict
in the network domain (network reconnaissance, network attack and defense operations, and network deterrence) and ways to prepare for
potential military conflict.92
The PLA’s role in network security relates closely to two other major elements of China’s network security strategy: economics and politics. It is
important to understand that the PLA by nature is a party military (i.e., for the CCP), not a state military, like that of the United States, which
serves to protect the nation regardless of who is in power. This has implications for the PLA’s objectives and functions. As outlined in former
President Hu Jintao’s “New Historic Missions,” the primary goal of the PLA is to provide an important guarantee of strength for the party to
consolidate its ruling position, tying its operations to CCP political objectives.93 The secondary goals of the PLA in Hu’s “New Historic Missions”
include providing strong security guarantees for national development and the safeguarding of national interests. China’s national interests
concern both political and economic objectives that are domestically driven (though potentially with international implications). For this reason,
foreign observers see PLA involvement in (1) utilizing computer network operations for political objectives and (2) conducting cyber industrial
espionage of industrialized nations for economic gain. Evidence from APT1, the Axiom report, and the installation of malware on 2014 Hong
Kong protesters’ mobile phones links the PLA with CCP economic and political objectives.
While China alleges that its activity to ensure network security – including military preparation for cyber
conflict – is defensive in nature,94 Western sources imply that neither observed Chinese behavior in
cyberspace nor its military capability buildup reflect China’s stated position .95 Authoritative U.S. government
documents often describe China as “using its computer network exploitation capability to support intelligence collection against the U.S.
diplomatic, economic, and defense industrial base sectors that support U.S. national defense programs.”96 Mandiant’s APT1 report states:
“APT1 has systematically stolen hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 organizations… The industries APT1 targets match industries
that China has identified as strategic to their growth, including four of the seven strategic emerging industries that China identified in its 12th
Five Year Plan.”97 The Axiom report reinforces this finding: Its actions “fit in particularly well with China’s strategic interests and with their most
recent Five Year Plans …in 2006 and 2011.”98 Concurrent with its network intrusions, references to “elite, specialized network warfare forces”
in the Science of Military Strategy indicate that military leaders are actively cultivating a human capital base for network attacks for both
offensive and defensive strategies and capabilities.99
AT: Chinese Cyber Sovereingty
Internet balkanization increases Russian cyber aggression---erases their fear of
blowback
Max Seddon 19, the Moscow correspondent for Financial Times, June 4 2019, "Russian technology:
can the Kremlin control the internet?", Financial Times, https://www.ft.com/content/93be9242-85e0-
11e9-a028-86cea8523dc2
Activists fear Ingushetia’s blackouts could be repeated across Russia thanks to a law signed by President Vladimir Putin in May.
The measure ostensibly aims to create a “sovereign internet” — effectively a parallel web run entirely on Russian
servers — that would allow Moscow to keep the internet operating in the event of a foreign cyber attack
aimed at disabling it.
To do so, internet
providers will be required to install equipment which Russia could use to separate itself
from the worldwide web at the flick of a “kill” switch. The technology is meant to reroute all external traffic through
Russian-controlled nodes while creating a back-up domain name system to help the country’s internet function independently.
Russia’s dependence on foreign systems would be vastly reduced, hastening a global Balkanisation of
the internet where the west’s influence is fragmented. It also uses a technique known as deep packet inspection, or
DPI, to centralise filtration powers in the hands of Russian censors , who have previously relied on
internet providers to block access to banned content.
“It’s framed as a precaution, but it’s actually a means of control,” says Sergey Sanovich, a political scientist at Stanford University who
specialises in Russian online censorship. “For the most part this is about making sure the Russian government can , when
necessary, have more direct access to control of information space.”
Russia let its internet grow largely untrammeled until 2012, when Mr Putin’s return to the presidency met with mass street protests organised
via social media. The Kremlin responded with an aggressive crackdown on online dissent: opposition pages were put on a list of
banned websites, dozens of people went to prison for “liking” and reposting material, and independent news websites were brought to heel.
But this ad hoc system was seen as inefficient.
In 2014, Mr Putin
declared the internet a “CIA project” able to weaken Russia’s sovereignty . Officials blamed the
US for using it to start the Arab spring and Ukraine’s Maidan revolution in 2013-14. Some
pro-Kremlin figures spoke of
emulating China’s Great Firewall — a mix of technologies and laws designed to regulate the internet domestically, whose
architects were invited to Moscow to share advice.
The crackdown intensified after 2017, when opposition leader Alexei Navalny aired a video of an anti-corruption investigation — which racked
up more than 20m views on YouTube — to help spark the largest nationwide protests since the Soviet Union collapsed. In 2018, Russia
restricted access to almost 650,000 websites— a nearly fivefold increase on the year before, according to human rights group Agora.
Yet Russia’s late start meant it lacked both the infrastructure and the human resources to control the
internet as effectively as Beijing. China boasts its own hugely popular messaging services, such as WeChat, and has a reported 2m
people who police public opinion online. By contrast, Roskomnadzor — the communications ministry’s watchdog — has just over 3,000
employees.
“The Chinese have been blocking things since day one,” says a person close to Russia’s communications ministry. “We
can’t do that.”
Roskomnadzor made its most ambitious effort to ban Telegram, the messaging service, last year , accusing it
of failing to comply with FSB requests to share user data. The attempt to block the app was a disastrous failure. Pavel Durov,
Telegram’s Russian founder, rerouted its traffic through cloud hosting services, forcing censors into a game of
whack-a-mole that saw them temporarily take down more than 16m IP addresses, including their own
website, while having little effect on Telegram.
The ban became a running joke among officials. At a ministry party last year, Roskomnadzor chief Alexander Zharov was taking photographs of
a picturesque sunset on his phone when guests joked that he should share them on the app, prompting a foul-mouthed tirade, according to one
guest.
“He’s a hostage to the situation,” says the person close to the ministry. “He knows you can’t block it. We have no control over the
process. The guys with epaulettes [in the FSB] bring bills to [lawmakers] and we have to implement them, [but] we look like idiots.”
Part of the problem, experts say, is that Russia’s security bureaucracy rarely takes its own technical limitations into
account.
“Attempts to implement Russia’s notion of information security on the internet have been distinguished by mishaps because they
don’t
really understand how the internet works,” says Keir Giles, a senior fellow of the Russia and Eurasia programme at Chatham
House. “If you prevent free flow of information across national borders you’ll break the internet.”
Advocates for greater controls frame it as a way to ensure Russia’s independence from hostile powers . “A
great deal of sectors of the real economy — power stations, transport infrastructure — depend very closely on the internet. It’s an issue of
state security,” says Andrei Klishas, a member of the upper house of parliament, who co-authored the law.
Mr Klishas cites
the latest US cyber security strategy, with its emphasis on making countries like Russia pay
“costs likely to deter future cyber aggression,” as the impetus for Moscow to act . President Donald Trump added
to those fears last month, when he admitted that the US carried out a cyber attack against a Kremlin-backed “troll farm” in St Petersburg during
the 2018 US midterm elections in apparent retaliation for Russia’s online meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign.
Experts say Russia’s justifications for shutting the country off from the global internet are too vague to support such sweeping action. These
scenarios include: a threat to network “integrity” that would prevent it from securing user communications; anything that would affect its
ability to function such as a natural disaster; and “deliberate destabilising informational pressure from outside or within”.
“There needs to be a way to react to the threats,” says Irina Levova, head of a government working group on internet issues.
“[But] you can’t just say let’s go to Mars tomorrow and have everyone go without having the technology to do so.”
Officials successfully tested the DPI system in a “fairly large region with a population of several thousand” — not Ingushetia — several months
ago, says Mr Klishas, and plan to do a nationwide test later this year. But serious doubts remain about whether the law’s
aims are even realisable.
According to Ms Levova, maintaining the DPI equipment alone may cost as much as Rbs134bn ($2bn) a year— seven times Mr Klishas’ estimate
— while many of the law’s technical provisions have yet to be clarified. Roskomnadzor reportedly hired RDP.RU, a company partly owned by
state-run Rostelecom, to supply the DPI equipment before the bill was even passed.
There is scepticism in the industry on whether Russia can produce the required technology. It has yet to
undergo a full-scale test. And attempts to separate Russia from global technology value chains have failed: 96 per cent of state institutions still
use unapproved foreign software despite an attempt to move them on to domestically produced alternatives, according to the audit chamber,
which monitors the spending of government departments. Russia’s government bought Rbs82bn in foreign hardware last year, compared with
just Rbs18bn of domestically-produced equipment, according to state defence conglomerate Rostec.
“Right now it’s totally impossible,” says a senior executive at a major Russian tech company. “There’s no capacity to produce really productive,
powerful chips. It would take years to develop that industry and in that time Apple will have gone much further. We could buy everything from
China, they’ve done it all themselves, but that would raise national security questions.”
Centralising control over Russia’s internet — in a bid to make it more secure — could actually make it more vulnerable to foreign attacks, says
Artem Kozlyuk, head of privacy rights group Roskomsvoboda. “Where the internet is more centralised and there is one state provider, then
there is more risk of external meddling,” he says.
Russia might also be trying to safeguard itself from the consequences of its own cyber operations, Mr Giles
says. The WannaCry and NotPetya attacks — which ravaged businesses globally with ransomware and
were blamed on Moscow — did considerable damage in Russia , taking some state-owned companies’ systems offline.
“Massive disruption has blowback,” he says. “[These measures] make sure that you don’t suffer damage
by cutting yourself off.”
When Russian troops seized Crimea in 2014, they quickly took over the peninsula’s main internet exchange
point and cable connections to the mainland. “That was the gold standard to achieve total information
dominance — the only things the target population is receiving are yours,” says Mr Giles.
Activists fear the internet isolation plan will do the same to Russian citizens. “It’ll be a totally different internet. It won’t be as quick or secure as
it is now,” Mr Kozlyuk says. “Blocking will be totally non-transparent. It might take months until someone finds out there was some sort of
internal order [to block a site].”
Mr Klishas says the system will simply help Roskomnadzor enforce existing law, which is ostensibly aimed at preventing terrorism and child
pornography but is often redirected to suppress dissent. “When states started fighting money laundering, the system was ineffective for a long
time, especially [against] problems like drug trafficking and international terrorism. People always found ways to finance this unlawful activity.
Then new procedures appeared to close these legal loopholes,” he says.
Undeterred by the Telegram ban, the FSB recently made a similar demand to Yandex, Russia’s largest tech company. Yandex, which already
shares some data with authorities, said on Tuesday it would push back against the FSB’s requests to decrypt all user communications.
Despite sweeping requirements on data storage and censorship compliance — which saw LinkedIn banned in 2016 — Roskomnadzor has made
little progress in bending Facebook and Google to its demands. In December Russia fined Google Rbs500,000 for failing to sign up to a
government system for sharing information with the security services. Google continues to defy the law, but there has been an escalation in
Moscow’s attempts to pressure western companies, Mr Sanovich says.
“The irony is that Putin, who is conducting all these information operations abroad, also makes Google or Facebook enforce censorship at
home,” he adds. “If they comply they risk making the regime stronger and compromising the integrity of their platform, but it’s much more
significant if they are blocked. The media environment in Russia is now so heavily government-controlled that these providers play a vital role in
giving Russians access to unfiltered information.”
Roskomnadzor is doubling down on that by making it more difficult to avoid its bans. Though virtual private networks remain widely accessible,
several have recently abandoned their Russian servers after the watchdog ordered them to share user traffic information with the Kremlin.
Mr Kozlyuk expects it to use DPI to enforce the ban by filtering individual VPN traffic and fining those using them. “It’s the logical extension,” he
says, “first you control the content, then the infrastructure, then the users.”
The ‘doomsday’ effort at online independence
Half of Russia’s internet traffic passes through an unassuming 19-storey high rise in southwestern Moscow that houses MSK-IX, the largest of
the country’s internet exchange points. The data centre is the physical point of contact for over 500 providers, linking traffic in western Russia
with the world.
Under Russia’s new internet “sovereignty” law, providers are required to install black boxes at every stage of the process using deep packet
inspection, a technology that can inspect, filter and reroute web traffic. A new internet monitoring centre will use DPI to give the Kremlin a
closer look at all information going in and out of Russia.
“We have no idea whatsoever about the communications networks installed in Russia and cross-border connections . . . who owns them, how
they are used, what information is carried along them,” MP Andrei Lugovoi, who co-authored the bill, said in February. “The centre we are
creating will see it all online.”
Using the technology, Russia’s censors will create a parallel domain server to function as a domestically-
run, back-up internet in the event of a cyber attack. It will also give the Kremlin far greater control over
the web within its borders by placing censorship directly in the state’s hands. Russia can refine its censorship by
blocking individual pages rather than whole servers. Should that fail, it can be used to reduce internet speed for targeted groups.
“The more sovereignty we have, including in the digital field the better. This is a very important area,” Mr Putin said.
“It’s a doomsday device — if you want to turn your country into North Korea, you can,” says Sergey Sanovich,
a political scientist at Stanford University. But unlike China, which began censoring its internet decades ago, Russia’s
internet is built into the global web — carrying a large risk of collateral damage. “It would be such a
heavy blow to the [Russian] economy and the state: they all depend on IT services ,” says Mr Sanovich.
Adv CP---1
Taxes and wealth transfers benefit the monopsony AND justify lower wages.
Eric A. Posner 21, American law professor at the University of Chicago Law School, 9-10-21, “How
Antitrust Failed Workers,” Oxford University Press, https://global.oup.com/academic/product/how-
antitrust-failed-workers-9780197507629?cc=us&lang=en&#
8.2. Tax and Transfer Policies
It is well understood that the fiscal system solution to market power involves subsidizing the price paid
by the firm. For example, the government could offer to pay a monopolist a subsidy for every unit sold,
so that the monopolist voluntarily manufactures and sells the number of units that it would produce in a
competitive market. Transposed to labor markets, the government would subsidize the wage. Standing
alone, such a scheme would have unattractive distributive effects because it would benefit the
corporation more than workers. But if a corporate tax on profits was coupled with a precisely tuned
subsidy on wages, the gains from alleviating the monopsony distortion via a subsidy could be
redistributed.
Under this approach, the government should apply the subsidy only to employers with monopsony
power, and the extent of the subsidy should be a function of the degree of monopsony power. But the
existence, and especially the degree, of labor market power is never self-evident. It is the domain of
antitrust law in the first place to determine whether an employer has power in a labor market, and this
factintensive inquiry seems to require lengthy hearings by courts.
A popular policy that has unanticipated consequences under monopsony is the Earned Income Tax
Credit. The EITC subsidizes earnings of low-income households and is among the largest forms of
redistribution in the United States. However, in monopsonized labor markets, the EITC can have
perverse consequences. By increasing the effective (after-tax) wage earned by the worker, it encourages
people to enter the labor market, enabling employers to pay a lower wage to the incumbent workers.
While the EITC can mitigate the disemployment effects of monopsony, it will also transfer a share of
those benefits to employers while reducing wages for incumbent workers.4
Gangster Antitrust DA
---Gangsters take over antitrust now.
Ariel Katz 20, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Toronto, 2020, “The Chicago School and
the Forgotten Political Dimension of Antitrust Law,” University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 87, Iss. 2,
Article 6, https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclrev/vol87/iss2/6
INTRODUCTION
The Chicago School, said to have influenced antitrust analysis inescapably,1 is associated today with a
set of ideas and arguments about the goal of antitrust law. In particular, the Chicago School is known for
asserting that economic efficiency is and should be the only purpose of antitrust law and that the
neoclassical price theory model offers the best policy tool for maximizing economic efficiency in the real
world;2 that corporate actions, including various vertical restraints, are efficient and welfareincreasing;3
that markets are self-correcting and monopoly is merely an occasional, unstable, and transitory
outcome of the competitive process;4 and that governmental cures for the rare cases where markets fail
to self-correct tend to be “worse than the disease.”5 These ideas and arguments, which Chicago School
lawyers and economists began developing in the 1950s and 1960s, reflect an ideological commitment to
nonenforcement.6 Having gained prominence since the 1970s and 1980s, these ideas and arguments
have led courts and regulators to adopt a restrained approach to the application of antitrust law.7
Related features of the Chicago School are the notions that firm size and levels of concentration should
not be a concern for antitrust law, and that considering anything other than a narrow set of purely
economic variables such as prices and output would “politicize” antitrust law, thereby undermining its
efficacy and legitimacy.8 Some of these ideas and arguments, especially the rejection of all political
considerations, at least inasmuch as they cannot be framed in purely economic terms, have become part
of the modern antitrust mainstream. They have been embraced even by some of those advocating a
return to more activist antitrust enforcement9 or otherwise do not subscribe to the entire Chicago
School agenda.10 Therefore one should not conflate the insistence that the determination of antitrust
liability should be rooted solely in economic grounds with the particular economic theories that
members of the Chicago School have espoused.11
This contemporary economics-focused view of antitrust celebrates the field as a technocratic one. It
regards antitrust as “an expertized, administrative enterprise focused on managing market structures
and industrial practices”12 in which questions of legality ought to be decided exclusively on the basis of
supposedly objective economic analysis. It also claims to employ only “nonideological, expertized, and
problem-solving modalities,”13 and does not admit any consideration or insight other than those which
economists and other experts trained in this field can analyze. This view criticizes and rejects earlier
court decisions that embraced a range of a supposedly “interventionist, populist, Brandeisian, and
vaguely Jeffersonian conception of antitrust law as a constraint on large-scale business power”14 and
lauds the reorientation of the law toward providing only “a mild constraint on a relatively small set of
practices that pose a threat to allocative efficiency.”15
Even the Call for Papers for this timely Symposium, while seeking to reassess “the validity of the Chicago
School’s assumptions about competition” and to consider “whether a more aggressive approach to
antitrust enforcement is now warranted,” refers to economics (“game theory, new sources of data, and
sophisticated empirical methods”) as the valid prism for reassessing the Chicago School and the validity
of many of the presumptions that the Chicago School’s ideas were based on.16
However, the excision of antitrust law’s political dimension is puzzling. For one thing, in enacting the
antitrust laws as ones of general application that apply to all industries (as opposed to specific
industries), Congress put in place a set of long-lasting basic rules of the game for the entire economy. In
enacting such laws, Congress made a political choice about the desirability of market competition, the
undesirability of certain conduct harmful to it, and the need for legal and regulatory tools that protect
the former and deter the latter. Indeed, in 1965 Professors Robert Bork and Ward Bowman wrote in
one of the most influential Chicago School articles that antitrust law is “an expression of a social
philosophy, an educative force, and a political symbol of extraordinary potency.”17
Moreover, the choice to prefer the ideas and arguments associated with one school over another is
political because it determines the direction of the law and fosters certain legal outcomes, which
themselves affect the distribution of resources across individuals and firms. Put simply, if the Chicago
School antitrust analysis would permit certain business conduct of which an alternative conception of
antitrust would disapprove, then the choice to prefer one approach over the other is political.18
Furthermore, the claim that one can fully separate the maximization of total welfare through the pursuit
of the most efficient allocation of resources (deemed merely a scientific and apolitical exercise befitting
antitrust law) from questions about the distribution of those resources (considered political and thus
befitting the use of other policy tools) rests on faulty and oversimplistic premises, as the separation
between the pursuit of efficiency and distributive concerns is not as neat as it might seem.
For one thing, as Professor Herbert Hovenkamp noted, antitrust policy concerned exclusively with
efficiency might encourage the growth of some firms and disregard the detriment to their small
competitors. While Congress can respond to the distributional detriment to small businesses by giving
them low-interest loans or other transfer payments, such measures will diminish the efficiency
advantage of being big and undermine the antitrust policy of encouraging efficiency.19 Therefore, “an
antitrust policy of maximizing efficiency cannot be pursued with anything resembling consistency unless
the government is willing to adopt a much more general policy of maximizing efficiency . . . [and]
abandon[ ] its concern with how wealth is distributed.”20
Second, the efficient allocation of resources in any particular society reflects the distribution of wealth
within that society because the amount of resources available to individuals affects their preferences
and priorities and hence impacts the demand for certain goods over others. “People with wealth,
including wealth caused by monopoly, express different preferences than people who are poor. [Yet]
[a]s far as allocative efficiency is concerned, however, one initial distribution is as good as another.”21
This is part of the allure of the supposedly objective and apolitical nature of the economics-focused
approach of the Chicago School and its intellectual allies, but until we can explain why we should pursue
a policy of maximizing satisfaction from a given starting point while being agnostic about how resources
were distributed at the starting point (and how they will continue to be allocated in the future), “the
notion of ‘allocative efficiency’ is, at best, a trivial guide to policymaking.”22
But more importantly and apart from those general observations, there was a time when the political
dimension of antitrust was openly acknowledged and discussed. Antitrust law was understood to
protect a particular set of liberal-democratic and “small-c” constitutional values, which Professor Lisa
Austin describes in another context, as the “the core ideas that law cannot confer the authority to
exercise power arbitrarily and that law must be able to guide actions.”23 To a large extent, antitrust law
endeavored to extend and entrench this principle in the economic life of the nation—not only between
public officials and those subject to their authority but also in the relations between private economic
actors. As I discuss below, that specific political dimension was apparent to some of the key figures in
the founding of what would become the Chicago School, who in fact initially supported it before
embarking on a systematic journey to reorient the law.
In Part I, I explain what I mean when I talk about the political dimension of antitrust and show how this
political dimension reflected certain quasi-constitutional values that shaped the development of
antitrust law until the rise of the Chicago School. In Part II, I show how the founders of the Chicago
School were not only familiar with this political dimension but also endorsed it, examine how they later
changed direction, and track their efforts to discredit it. In Part III, I consider the desirability and
feasibility of reviving antitrust’s political dimension.
I. THE POLITICAL DIMENSION OF ANTITRUST
As might be gleaned from the previous discussion, the distinction between economic, noneconomic,
and political approaches to antitrust may obfuscate more than it reveals: antitrust can and indeed has
accommodated more than one economic theory and any decision to apply one economic theory or
another to a question of public policy is political. The choice to consider or ignore distributional effects
is political, as is the decision to endorse or reject concerns about power, be it economic, political, or
both. But if all antitrust is political, then talking about and contrasting the economic and noneconomic
or political dimensions of antitrust only makes sense if we clarify what each of those labels means.
Therefore, in the rest of this Essay I will use the term “economic” to refer to the view that the goals of
antitrust law should only be concerned with economic efficiency, be it allocative, productive, or
dynamic. By contrast, in using the term “political” I will largely follow Professor Robert Pitofsky’s
description of the following concerns: (a) “a fear that excessive concentration of economic power will
breed antidemocratic political pressures”; (b) “a desire to enhance individual and business freedom by
reducing the range within which private discretion by a few in the economic sphere controls the welfare
of all”; and (c) an
overriding political concern [ ] that if the free-market sector of the economy is allowed to develop under
antitrust rules that are blind to all but economic concerns, the likely result will be an economy so
dominated by a few corporate giants that it will be impossible for the state not to play a more intrusive
role in economic affairs.24
B---Antitrust’s sociopolitical goals evolve over time to avoid punishing political

enemies.
the Forgotten Political Dimension of Antitrust Law,” University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 87, Issue 2,
C. Feasibility
Predictably, acknowledging antitrust law’s political dimension and reintegrating it doctrinally gives rise
to concerns about the use in judicial decision-making of political theories that may not be rigorous
enough to yield testable and predictable outcomes, or to a concern that the law would be hijacked by
partisan politics. As Professor Carl Shapiro noted:
[A]ntitrust institutions are poorly suited to address problems associated with the excessive political
power of large corporations. The courts and the antitrust enforcement agencies know how to assess
economic power and the economic effects of mergers or challenged business practices, but there are no
reliable methods by which they could assess the political power of large firms. Asking the DOJ, the FTC
to evaluate mergers and business conduct based on the political power of the firms involved would
invite corruption by allowing the executive branch to punish its enemies and reward its allies through
the antitrust cases brought, or not brought, by antitrust enforcers. On top of that, asking the courts to
approve or block mergers based on the political power of the merging firms would undermine the rule
of law while inevitably drawing the judicial branch into deeply political considerations.166
While legitimate, these concerns about the institutional capacity of courts and enforcement agencies
to assess the political power of firms involve two separate questions. The first is whether the courts and
enforcement agencies are inherently incapable of making such an assessment. It may be conceded that
even if we accept the premise that too much economic power leads to too much political power and
that maintaining competition is an effective way to constrain firms’ ability to exercise unacceptable
levels of political power, we nonetheless do not currently have sufficiently developed analytical tools
that would allow courts and enforcement agencies to decide whether any specific challenged conduct
allows a firm to acquire or maintain an unacceptable degree of political power. But are courts and
enforcement agencies inherently incapable of developing such tools?
The development of antitrust economics provides a useful point of comparison. Historically, antitrust
law preceded antitrust economics. Indeed, when Congress enacted the Sherman Act, the basic (and now
standard) economic models of competition and monopoly, as well as the field of industrial organization,
were at their infancy,167 and Congress’s decidedly political move did not receive a warm welcome from
the leading economists at the time.168 Yet, the existence of antitrust laws generated demand for
applicable economic theory and evidence. This demand fueled the supply of economic expertise,
which, in turn, continued to inform the development of the law. For example, if the fate of a merger
depends on evidence concerning its likely impact on prices and inputs, litigants and their experts would
develop theoretical models and provide supporting evidence attempting to demonstrate those effects.
Indeed, many antitrust economists honed their skills by analyzing the decisions and the court records of
decided cases or by acting as experts for actual or potential litigants. As a result, “[l]aw shaped
economic thinking about problems of industrial organization at least as often as economic industrial
organization theory inspired law.”169
If economists have been capable of developing acceptable methodologies for assessing the economic
effect of reviewed practices,170 there is no a priori reason why political scientists, political economists,
political philosophers, and jurists would not be able to provide scientifically valid models and evidence
to answer questions such as the impact of market concentration on the political process, or the extent
to which a contract in restraint of trade interferes unreasonably or disproportionately with the
freedoms of those it seeks to govern. Their answers may be contentious or indeterminate at times, but
so are the answers that economists have provided over time.171 If courts ask those questions, then
litigants would provide them, and gradually the quality of such analysis may become just as good as the
quality of the models and evidence that economists provide today.
But even if we insist that only the insights of economists can aid courts and enforcement agencies to
decide antitrust questions, or that there are limits to antitrust courts’ and enforcers’ abilities to
productively use noneconomic insights, issues still emerge concerning the relationship between
competition and political power. Recognizing the existence of institutional limitations to solving certain
problems does not compel us to conclude that those problems are not ones that the law is concerned
about. Instead, recognizing such limitations might influence the law’s course of action in resolving the
problem.
7--- Warming won’t be catastrophic

Dr. Benjamin Zycher 21, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Doctorate in Economics
from UCLA, Master in Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley, and Bachelor of Arts in
Political Science from UCLA, Former Senior Economist at the RAND Corporation, Former Adjunct
Professor of Economics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and at the California State
University Channel Islands, and Former Senior Economist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California
Institute of Technology, “The Case for Climate Change Realism”, 6/21/2021,
https://www.aei.org/articles/the-case-for-climate-change-realism/
CLIMATE TRENDS
Beyond exhibiting extreme overconfidence in a cherry-picked analysis of climate-change causes, politicians

and activists frequently ground their alarmism in frightening predictions about consequences that are
likewise far from certain. This is not only true within the very new (and still quite unreliable) field of predictive climate science; it is
true even in the context of ongoing climate phenomena. Indeed, politicians and journalists frequently characterize dramatic or
unusual climate phenomena as the product of anthropogenic climate change, yet there is little evidence to
support those claims.
For one thing, there

is no observable upward trend in the number of “hot” days between 1895 and 2017; 11
of the 12 years with the highest number of such days occurred before 1960 . Since 2005, NOAA has
maintained the U.S. Climate Reference Network, comprising 114 meticulously maintained temperature stations spaced more or
less uniformly across the lower 48 states, along with 21 stations in Alaska and two stations in Hawaii. They are placed to avoid heat-island
effects and other such distortions as much as possible. The
reported data show no increase in average temperatures
over the available 2005-2020 period. In addition, a recent reconstruction of global temperatures over
the past 1 million years — created using data from ice-sheet formations — shows that there is nothing
unusual about the current warm period.
Rising sea levels are another frequently cited example of impending climate crisis. And yet sea levels have been rising since at
least the mid-19th century. This rise is tied closely with the end of the Little Ice Age that occurred not long before, which led to a rise
in global temperatures, some melting of sea ice, and a thermal expansion of sea water. There is some evidence showing an acceleration in sea-
level rise beginning in the early 1990s: Satellite measurements of sea levels began in 1992 and show a sea-level rise of about 3.2 millimeters per
year between 1993 and 2010. Before 1992, when sea levels were measured with tidal gauges, the data showed an increase of about 1.7
millimeters per year on average from 1901 to 1990.
But because the datasets are from two different sources — satellite measurements versus tidal gauges — they are not directly
comparable, and therefore they cannot be interpreted as showing an acceleration in sea-level rises . Moreover, the
period beginning in 1993 is short in terms of global climate phenomena . Since sea levels have risen at a constant rate,
remained constant, or even fallen during similar relatively short periods, inferences drawn from them are problematic. It is of
course possible there has been an acceleration in sea-level rise, but even still, it would not be clear whether such a development stemmed
primarily from anthropogenic or natural causes; clearly, both processes are relevant.
A study of changes in Arctic and Antarctic sea ice yields very different inferences. Since 1979, Arctic sea ice
has declined relative to the 30-year average (again, the degree to which this is the result of anthropogenic factors is not known). Meanwhile,
Antarctic sea ice has been growing relative to the 30-year average, and the global sea-ice total has remained roughly
constant since 1979.
Extreme weather occurrences are likewise used as evidence of an ongoing climate crisis, but again, a
study of the available data undercuts that assessment. U.S. tornado activity shows either no increase or a
downward trend since 1954. Data on tropical storms, hurricanes, and accumulated cyclone energy (a wind-speed index
measuring the overall strength of a given hurricane season) reveal little change since satellite measurements of the
phenomena began in the early 1970s. The number of wildfires in the United States shows no upward trend since
1985, and global acreage burned has declined over past decades. The Palmer Drought Severity Index shows no trend since 1895. And the
IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, published in 2014, displays substantial divergence between its discussion of the historical evidence on droughts and the projections
on future droughts yielded by its climate models. Simply put, the available data do not support the ubiquitous assertions about the causal link between greenhouse-
gas accumulation, temperature change, and extreme weather events and conditions.
Unable to demonstrate that observed climate trends are due to anthropogenic climate change — or even that these events are particularly unusual or concerning
— climate
catastrophists will often turn to dire predictions about prospective climate phenomena. The problem with such
predictions is that they
are almost always generated by climate models driven by highly complex sets of
assumptions
about which there is significant dispute. Worse, these models are notorious for failing to accurately
predict already documented changes in climate . As climatologist Patrick Michaels of the Competitive Enterprise Institute notes:
During all periods from 10 years (2006-2015) to 65 (1951-2015) years in length, the observed temperature trend lies in
the lower half of the collection of climate model simulations, and for several periods it lies very close
(or even below) the 2.5th percentile of all the model runs. Over shorter periods, such as the last two decades, a plethora of
mechanisms have been put forth to explain the observed/modeled divergence, but none do so completely and many of the explanations are
inconsistent with each other.
Similarly, climatologist John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville observes that almost
all of the 102 climate models incorporated
into the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) — a tracking effort conducted by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory — overstate
past
and current temperature trends by a factor of two to three, and at times even more. It seems axiomatic to say we
should not rely on climate models that are unable to predict the past or the present to make predictions about the distant future.
The overall temperature trend is not the only parameter the models predict poorly. As an example, every CMIP climate
model
predicts that increases in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gas should create an enhanced
heating effect in the mid-troposphere over the tropics — that is, at an altitude over the tropics of about 30,000-40,000 feet. The
underlying climatology is simple: Most of the tropics is ocean, and as increases in greenhouse-gas concentrations warm the Earth slightly, there
should be an increase in the evaporation of ocean water in this region. When the water vapor rises into the mid-troposphere, it condenses,
releasing heat. And yet the satellites
cannot find this heating effect — a reality suggesting that our
understanding of climate and atmospheric phenomena is not as robust as many seem to assume.
The poor predictive record of mainstream climate models is exacerbated by the tendency of the IPCC
and U.S. government agencies to assume highly unrealistic future increases in greenhouse-gas
concentrations. The IPCC’s 2014 Fifth Assessment Report, for example, uses four alternative “representative concentration pathways” to
outline scenarios of increased greenhouse-gas concentrations yielding anthropogenic warming. These scenarios are known as RCP2.6, RCP4.5,
RCP6, and RCP8.5. Since 1950, the average annual increase in greenhouse-gas concentrations has been about 1.6 parts per million. The average
annual increase from 1985 to 2019 was about 1.9 parts per million, and from 2000 to 2019, it was about 2.2 parts per million. The largest
increase that occurred was about 3.4 parts per million in 2016. But the assumed average annual increases in greenhouse-gas concentrations
through 2100 under the four RCPs are 1.1, 3.0, 5.5, and an astounding 11.9 parts per million, respectively.
The studies generating the most alarmist predictions are the IPCC’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C and the U.S. government’s
Fourth National Climate Assessment, both of which were published in 2018. Both assume RCP8.5 as the scenario most relevant for policy
planning. The average annual greenhouse-gas increase under RCP8.5 is over five times the annual average for 2000-2019
and almost four times the single biggest increase on record . Climatologist Judith Curry, formerly of the Georgia Institute
of Technology, describes such a scenario as “borderline impossible.”
RCP6 is certainly more realistic. It predicts a temperature increase of 3 degrees Celsius by 2100 in the average of the CMIP models. But on
average, those CMIP models overstate the documented temperature record by a factor of at least two. Ultimately,
models with a
poor record of successfully accounting for past data and highly unrealistic future greenhouse-gas
concentrations should not be considered a reasonable basis for future policy formulation.
DOJ Tradeoff DA
No Central Asia war OR escalation
Rodger Baker 16, Master's Degree in Military History from Norwich University, Senior Vice President of
East Asia Analysis at the Stratfor, RealClearWorld, 9/8/2016, “A New Round in the Great Game Begins”,
http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2016/09/08/a_new_round_in_the_great_game_begins_11203
2.html
So how would significant instability in Central Asia be managed? History, geography and military
realities all point to Russia as a first line of defense . As the traditional security guarantor for Central Asia, Russia has military
bases in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, two of the three regional members (Kazakhstan being the third) of the Collective Security Treaty
Organization. Moreover, Moscow's concerns over the spread of ethnic unrest and terrorism and its strategic considerations along its periphery
compel Russian involvement in Central Asia. But
Russia is preoccupied with other problems in other places. Still
mired in economic recession, the country has had to re-examine even its sacrosanct defense budget . In
fact, it has recently drawn down and reorganized some of its troops in Central Asia. Should the region
start to unravel, Moscow will face a strategic dilemma. Given Russia's involvement in Syria and Ukraine , the
Kremlin may have to consider allowing China to expand its presence in Central Asia.
China has steadily increased its ties to Central Asia, focusing first on energy and resources, then on trade
and infrastructure projects and, more recently, on defense and security cooperation. After all, Central Asia
offers a route to Europe far from the U.S.-patrolled seas and a vast buffer from the instability and Islamist militancy of the Middle East and
Southwest Asia. But
as China's involvement in Central Asia has grown, so too has its dependency on the
region, and, in turn, the need to secure its interests there . The attack against the Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan was a
reminder that Beijing's activity in Central Asia could make China a higher-profile target, not only for members of the Uighur diaspora but also
for aggrieved locals. Though China has met similar resistance to its endeavors around the globe, the ethnic and linguistic connections between
China's Uighurs and the region present a unique concern for Beijing. If stability in Central Asia breaks down, China could find itself in the
nightmarish scenario of having a potential haven for separatist militants just across its border. That prospect could compel Beijing, which has
yet to participate in military action in a third country beyond U.N. operations, to action.
Then, of course, there is the United States. The country also has expanded military relations in Central Asia as a means to assist with the
war in Afghanistan and to operate in Russia's periphery, much as Russia operates in Europe's. But in many ways, Central Asia is the
last place the United States, primarily a maritime power, is prepared to intervene in the event of a major security
breakdown. Although the U.S. military is an intervention force, it relies on the seas for transporting troops and supplies, as well as for
projecting power. The political complications of running supply lines through third countries and the logistical headache of moving heavy
supplies by air or over ground compound the difficulties of distance, as the war in Afghanistan has demonstrated. Notwithstanding
the
potential for instability in Central Asia and the possibility that another "terrorist haven" could emerge in a chaotic region, the
implications of a Central Asian intervention of any significant scale make it unlikely. Furthermore, after years
of sustained military engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq, and with budgetary and social considerations
at home, the United States is naturally (and historically) inclined to back off from overseas interventions. To
that end, Washington will pair a call for greater active responsibility from its allies with a strategy
focused on preventing the rise of a single regional hegemon , rather than on imposing stability.
An Interesting Position
And so, Washington will find itself in an interesting position. Embroiled in an interminable war against terrorism (an inherently un-winnable
conflict, since it purports to combat a tactic, not an enemy), the United States has an interest in sealing any vacuum that Islamist militancy
might otherwise fill in a destabilized Central Asia. At the same time, direct,
large-scale intervention is infeasible and perhaps
unnecessary. If the United States' strategic objective is to prevent the rise of a single regional hegemon,
having Russia and China engaged in Central Asia could prove useful.
Given their proximity to the region, both countries have a compelling reason to take action in Central Asia. Of course, their shared security
concern could provide Moscow and Beijing impetus for greater joint military cooperation, and a Sino-Russian alliance would not be a positive
development for U.S. international strategy. Nonetheless, it could just as easily expose the differences between the countries' strategies and
goals in the region while tying up Russia and China's resources and attention. A
protracted pacification and stabilization
operation would stress the countries' budgets, military and domestic political capital. For the United States,
this could solve a couple of problems at once. Heavily engaged in Central Asia, Russia may be more willing to make
compromises in other areas. China, meanwhile, may divert resources from its maritime budget and
developments to its land warfare capacity, easing tensions in the South and East China seas.
The threat of a floundering Central Asia would not be enough to overcome the domestic political and
military obstacles to a direct, large-scale U.S. military intervention in the region , regardless of what
moral, political or security justifications Washington may offer . During the Cold War, instability anywhere in the world
could jeopardize the balance between the Soviet and U.S. spheres. Consequently, both powers adopted the habit of intervening by overt or
clandestine means even in minor countries. After the Cold War, the United States continued in this vein, first under the guise of a moral
imperative to promote stability for stability's sake, and later to counter terrorism. Now that the global balance of power is shifting, however,
the United States is losing its ability and desire to be the policeman of the world.
1---Morale’s at an all-time low---the AFF saves it---that’s key to effective enforcement.

John Newman 21, associate professor with the University of Miami School of Law, “Morale At the
DOJ’s Antitrust Division Has Plummeted. Here’s How to Fix It,” ProMarket, 3/17/21,
https://promarket.org/2021/03/17/doj-antitrust-division-morale-biden-pay-funding/
The US Department of Justice Antitrust Division faces one of the most critical junctures in its long and
storied history. A landmark case against Google, high concentration levels across a variety of industries,
a projected wave of merger-driven consolidation, and an increasing likelihood of legislative reforms—
amidst all of these, a healthy and robust Antitrust Division has never been more necessary.
So it’s been especially troubling to see the drastic decline in Division morale over the past four years. In
2010, when I was a summer intern there, the Antitrust Division prided itself on being one of the best
places to work in the entire federal government. That year, the Division ranked 22nd out of over 400
federal agency components included in the Office of Personal Management’s (OPM) annual Federal
Employee Viewpoint Survey.
But per the OPM’s latest results, morale at the Antitrust Division has plummeted, dragging the Division
all the way down to 404th place out of the 420 agency components surveyed.
Let that sink in: morale at the Antitrust Division dropped from a consistent top 10 percent ranking to a
bottom 10 percent ranking in less than a decade.
This can’t be explained away by an overall drop in morale at the Justice Department. It is specific to the
Antitrust Division. The blue line below represents the Division; the gray line DOJ more broadly.
After a temporary drop during 2011–12 (likely due to an internal restructuring effort), a marked
divergence began in 2017. Over that time period, as highlighted by the New York Times, the Division was
among the ten agencies experiencing the worst declines in employee morale.
At the same time, antitrust law itself has skyrocketed in visibility. A well-functioning Antitrust Division is
always important—these days, it’s crucial.
What’s to Be Done?
The Biden administration faces both challenges and opportunity. Citing interagency dysfunction
between the Division and the FTC over the past four years, a number of observers have proposed
stripping antitrust jurisdiction from one of the agencies. But why not fix existing structures instead of
simply tossing them aside? Practicing with the Antitrust Division should be a positive, fulfilling
experience. And, just as importantly, a re-energized Division will translate into more effective,
innovative enforcement efforts.
2---Current cases thump.

Tara Lachapelle 21, staff writer at Bloomberg, “Wall Street Is Ready to Put Lina Khan’s FTC to the
Test,” Bloomberg, 8-25-2021, https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-08-25/wall-street-is-
ready-to-put-lina-khan-s-ftc-to-the-test
Already, regulators have two major cases sucking up resources. The FTC last week refiled its monopoly
lawsuit against Facebook Inc., alleging its takeovers of Instagram and WhatsApp violated antitrust laws.
(Its deal last year for Giphy also employed a sneaky maneuver to avoid showing up on regulators’ radars, and now they’re looking to close that
loophole.) The
Justice Department is pursuing its own case against Google. And what was initially seen as a
narrow effort to reel in dominant technology companies has since expanded to other industries in light
of a sweeping executive order from President Biden. Even more obscure areas such as ocean shipping
are facing new scrutiny.
M&A reviews had already become more of a slog in recent years. Dechert LLP’s Antitrust Merger Investigation Timing Tracker — aptly
nicknamed the DAMITT report — shows how investigations that once took an average of eight months now stretch
into a year or longer:
It’s not a priority now.

Kellen Dwyer 21, served in the Justice Department for seven years, first as an Assistant U.S. Attorney
in the Eastern District of Virginia, “It’s Time to Surge Resources Into Prosecuting Ransomware Gangs,”
Lawfare, 5/20/21, https://www.lawfareblog.com/its-time-surge-resources-prosecuting-ransomware-
gangs
The Biden administration has declared cybersecurity a top priority and, in the wake of the attack against
Colonial Pipeline, has reiterated its resolve to battle ransomware. The Department of Justice, for its part,
has launched a ransomware task force charged with developing a strategy to target the entire criminal
ecosystem around ransomware. Yet, when Attorney General Merrick Garland appeared before the
House Appropriations Committee earlier this month to highlight the key priorities in the department’s
2022 budget request, cyber did not make the list.
To fight ransomware, the Justice Department should follow the playbook that it used against organized
crime in the 1960s and terrorists after 9/11. The department needs a “troop surge” of cyber
prosecutors and agents to conduct long-term, proactive investigations into ransomware gangs and the
organizations that enable them.
Local enforcement is key and ineffective now.

Michael Garcia 21, Former Senior Policy Advisor, “Follow the Money: Few Federal Grants are Used to
Fight Cybercrime,” Third Way, 2/16/21, https://www.thirdway.org/report/follow-the-money-few-
federal-grants-are-used-to-fight-cybercrime
Like traditional crime, not all cybercrime rises to the level that requires a federal response . And like other
crimes, victims will call upon state and local law enforcement to respond.1 They are unprepared.
The 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States lack the tools, personnel, and resources to
respond to cybercrime e
ffectively. State and locals have turned to federal funding to fill these gaps, but federal government
grants do not prioritize combatting cybercrime.
The Justice Department (DOJ) has never identified cybercrime as an “Area of Emphasis” for their main
criminal justice grant that awards state and local criminal justice agencies $400-$550 million annually.2 And while
DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) provided nearly $2 billion that state and local officials could use for cyber enforcement
purposes in Fiscal Year (FY) 2019, data from DHS implies that very little is used for cybercrime. Only 2% of all DHS preparedness grant programs
were used for all cybersecurity needs in FY 2019.3 Moreover, just three grants in FY 2019 were solely dedicated to cybercrime with a total
budget of $12.7 million.4
Cap K
2---State capitalism is resilient.
Larry Elliott 21, The Guardian’s Economics editor, 7-30-21, “During the pandemic, a new variant of
capitalism has emerged,” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/30/pandemic-new-
variant-of-capitalism-spending-covid-state
Over the past 18 months, the world has been amazed at how slippery an enemy Covid-19 has proved to
be. The virus first detected in China at the end of 2019 has mutated on a regular basis. Vaccines need to
evolve because the virus is changing to survive.
The shock to the global economy from the pandemic has been colossal, but things are now looking up –
especially for advanced countries. Some are surprised by the pace of recovery, but they perhaps
shouldn’t be, because alongside new variants of the virus there has been a new variant of global
capitalism.
This matters. For decades the Austrian variant of political economy – the small state, non-
interventionist, trickle-down, free-trade, low-tax model based around the ideas of Friedrich von Hayek –
was dominant. It replaced the Keynesian variant because in the 1970s a free-market approach was seen
as the answer to the challenges of the time: inflation, weak corporate profitability, and a loss of business
dynamism.
Not even the biggest fan of capitalism would say it is a perfect system, merely that – so far at least – it
has proved more durable than its rivals. And the flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances is a big
part of that. The state is now a much more powerful economic actor than it was before the pandemic,
much to the disappointment of the free-market thinktanks which are home to Hayek’s disciples.
Change was coming even before Covid-19. In retrospect, the last hurrah for the Austrian variant was the
aftermath of the 2008-9 financial crisis, a period when the economic orthodoxy insisted on austerity to
balance the books.
The upshot was weak growth, low investment, stagnating living standards and a backlash from voters.
Central banks found it impossible to raise interest rates from their rock-bottom levels, because so many
people on low incomes were relying on debt to get by, and higher borrowing costs would have tipped
them over the edge.
At the other end of the spectrum, corporate and personal taxes were cut, and the rich got richer. The big
tech giants, minnows themselves in their early days, used their market power to prevent new startups
from posing a threat. Voters started to get the impression that the system only really worked for those
at the top: and they were right. The populist backlash was aimed primarily at governments, but the real
problem was that capitalism was starting to eat itself.
There were signs of a shift, from the middle of the last decade onwards. Donald Trump was no believer
in free trade and was proud to call himself “tariff man”. The unexpectedly strong performance of Jeremy
Corbyn at the UK general election in 2017 – with his powerful anti-austerity message – moved the dial
too. It led then prime minister Theresa May to pledge an end to the policy. Boris Johnson’s shtick at the
2019 election – and subsequently – has all been about levelling up, not about trickling down.
This process has accelerated since the start of 2020, both at a domestic and global level. Governments
of left, right and centre have intervened in their economies in ways that would have been unthinkable
two years ago: paying wages for furloughed workers; keeping businesses afloat through grants and
loans; preventing landlords from evicting tenants; and generally throwing financial caution to the wind.
The world has been fighting a war against Covid, and in wartime the power of the state always
increases.
It has not just been about governments spending and borrowing more, though that is part of the story.
Fiscal policy – which covers tax and spending decisions – has taken centre stage for the first time since
the Keynesian model ran into trouble in the mid-1970s. Central banks have become bit-players, and are
having to fend off the accusation that their prime role is to print the money needed to cover the vast
sums finance ministries are spending. The European Central Bank, previously tough in acting against the
threat of price rises, has said it will tolerate more inflation before raising interest rates.
The race to the bottom on tax is coming to an end. US president Joe Biden has said he will pay for his
latest spending plans by raising income tax on Americans earning more than $400,000 (£290,000) a
year. At least 130 countries have signed up to plans, put together by the Organisation for Economic Co-
operation and Development, for a minimum global corporate tax rate. Critics say the proposal doesn’t
go far enough, but it is a significant moment nevertheless.
Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund is telling member governments that they need to tackle
the entrenched power wielded by a small number of dominant companies – or risk stifling innovation
and investment. The IMF says the tech giants are a case in point because “the market disruptors that
displaced incumbents two decades ago have become increasingly dominant players”, and they “do not
face the same competitive pressures from today’s would-be disruptors”. But it is not just the tech
sector. The IMF says the same trend towards falling business dynamism can be seen across many
industries.
The building blocks of new-variant capitalism are already there. Governments are going to tax and
spend more, and they will use regulatory powers to weaken monopolies. There will be selective use of
nationalisation – as happened with UK defence manufacturer Sheffield Forgemasters this week.
Governments will borrow money to invest in infrastructure projects and to increase the budget for
science. Industrial and regional policies will be back in vogue. The idea is to harness the power of the
state with the dynamism of the private sector and , as was the case with Keynes, to save capitalism from
itself.
There will be pushback, and it would be naive to think otherwise. This is evolution not revolution, and
many of the weaknesses of the old order – insecurity at work, for example – remain untouched. Enemies
abound. The mixed-economy model is anathema to those who think state intervention is either
unnecessary or harmful, and to those who think the demise of capitalism is merely a matter of time.
The new variant of capitalism may prove to be a dud, but for now it has things going for it. These are
times that call for a multilateral, collaborative approach, in which rich countries dig deep to help poorer
nations, and themselves in the process.
Failings of the old model were exposed in the run-up to the crisis, while the benefits of a more hands-on
approach have been demonstrated during the pandemic response. Unsurprisingly, there is appetite for a
different way of running the economy. The reason a new variant has emerged is simple: there is a need
for something stronger and more resilient than the old model.
B---Cap solves war---liberal order good and won’t collapse

Michael Mousseau 19, PhD, studies international politics with a particular focus on the link between
economic conditions, institutions, and conflict, 7/29/19, “The End of War: How a Robust Marketplace
and Liberal Hegemony Are Leading to Perpetual World Peace,”
https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/isec_a_00352?mobileUi=0
If my argument is correct, the world is on the cusp of tremendous change: across the globe,
contractualism is overtaking status-personalism and, in so doing, launching an era of peace and
prosperity. This conclusion is reached without any monotonic or teleological assumptions: an
ything that collapses the contractualist economies for a generation or two would stop or reverse this
trend.81 All else being equal, the contractualist hegemony has made the odds of unit-level change from
a status to a contractualist economy more likely than the reverse. At the start of the twentieth century,
only the United States had a contractualist economy; by the end, at least thirty-five states were
contractualist.82 The Westphalian system has never been as conducive to transitions to contractualist
economies as it has been under the contractualist hegemony, which prohibits states from starting wars
for booty, debt collection, or territory. Nor has the world ever had such widespread access to capital,
mobility, and equity in trade as it has had since the contractualist hegemony made it so with the signing
of the Atlantic Charter and the implementation of the Bretton Woods agreements. The number of
transitions also predictably increased after the Cold War, when the contractualist hegemony emerged as
largely unchallenged. In this way, system change toward contractualist hegemony within the anarchic
order, rooted in unit-level change, ultimately promotes more unit-level change toward a contractualist
world.
Reports of the Demise of the Liberal Order Are Greatly Exaggerated
I have argued that the liberal global order is on the rise; yet, liberal values around the world seem to be
in retreat. In recent years, two contractualist states with populist governments—Hungary and Poland—
have begun to embrace anti-immigrant and anti-globalization positions. In the United States, President
Donald Trump appears to favor status values such as power, rank, and loyalty over contractualist values
such as equity and respect for the rule of law. In foreign policy, Trump does not seem to share
contractualists' opposition to Russia's efforts to sow chaos, and he sees trade in terms of winners and
losers.
Reports of the demise of the liberal order, however, are greatly exaggerated. First, Hungary and Poland
are newly contractualist states. The sociological nature of economic norms theory means that
contractualist values should be more firmly rooted in older contractualist societies than in newer ones.
This is corroborated with the natural experiment of Germany: in 1962 West Germany embraced
contractualism (see table 1), but it was only after 1991 that East Germany could have become
contractualist, when massive investments from the Federal Republic caused incomes in the marketplace
to become higher than incomes obtainable from status relationships. Today, Germany's populist
movement is concentrated in the eastern part of the country and is largely nonexistent in the western
part,83 which corroborates the expectation that some newly contractualist societies retain some of
their status values even after a generation of robust opportunity in the marketplace. Deeper changes in
values may not occur until generational cohorts initially socialized into status or axial economies have
passed on.
Second, the electorates in most of the thirty-five contractualist states listed in table 1 in 2010 have not
experienced substantial increases in populist sentiment. Italy's Five Star movement is often called
populist but largely because of its anti-immigrant stance. Although an embrace of immigrants would
seem consistent with contractualist values, opposition to large numbers of immigrants is arguably a
rational response to what is essentially a huge external shock that has intensified in recent years. Britons
voted to leave the European Union, but largely because they believed they were being treated unfairly
in it. The rejection of unfair terms of trade, whether perceived correctly or not, is consistent with
contractualist values.
Third, the strength of institutions far exceeds that of any one person, including the president of the
United States. Liberal values and institutions are rooted in contractualist economic norms and will not
disappear simply because some leaders choose not to abide by them. For instance, although Trump may
want the United States to withdraw from the North Atlantic alliance, this is not a view shared by
Congress and the American people. Even members of Trump's administration have often restrained him
in ways consistent with contractualist values and institutions.84
In economic norms theory, the only way the United States' contractualist values could shift to status or
axial values would be through radical economic change. As mentioned above, economics is ultimately at
the mercy of politics, as an influential coalition of rent-seekers could potentially collapse a contractualist
economy by failing to sustain the highly inclusive marketplace or uphold the state's credibility in
enforcing of contracts. In recent years, the U.S. economy has begun tilting toward rent-seekers, given
the growing role of private money in electoral campaigns and the increasing sophistication of rent-
seekers in masking their activities though the manipulation of public opinion, including through their
concentrated ownership of media outlets. Such rentierism could precipitate a change in U.S. values if it
results in a retraction of the market substantial enough that newer generations began to obtain higher
wages in newfound status networks than in the marketplace.
In this way, the Trump phenomenon may reflect a pathology in U.S. governing institutions; but at least
so far, it arguably has not extended to the American people. Most of Trump's supporters seem to be
drawn to him not for his expressions of status values, but for his pledges to fight a “rigged” system and
create well-paying jobs. Whether or not Trump means what he says, many of his supporters saw a vote
for him as an act of protest against the increasing corruption occurring in the United States, a clear
contractualist expression.85 Although a collapse of the U.S. economy and transition to an axial or a
status economy is always possible, the feedback loop of popular insistence on economic growth and a
highly inclusive marketplace makes this unlikely. Aside from an external shock (such as nuclear war or
climate devastation), such a transition could happen only if the rentiers somehow manage to remain in
power long enough to institutionalize a permanently underemployed underclass.
Fourth, even if the U.S. economy were to collapse and the United States became an axial or a status
power, the combined economic might of all the other contractualist countries in the world is nearly
twice that of the United States. The soft power of the United States in world politics lies not in its power
to persuade, but in it being the largest of the contractualist states, and in its willingness to provide the
public good of global security since the collapse of the pound sterling in late 1946. If the United States
withdrew from its leadership role, the remaining contractualist powers would fill the vacuum. None of
them has an economy relatively large enough to enable it to act as a natural leader and principal
provider of global security, but it is the temperament of these states that they can easily form an
international organization to coordinate and act on their shared security interests, even if some may
choose to free ride.
Fifth, current events need to be viewed within a larger context. Fernand Braudel pinpoints the rise of
the modern world economy as starting around the year 1450 in northwestern Europe.86 The first
contractualist economy emerged more than two centuries ago. Since then, contractualist states have
confronted numerous shocks and threats to their systems, including the American Civil War, the Great
Depression, two world wars, and the Cold War. The present populist mini-wave and pathologies in U.S.
democracy are mere trifling episodes in a larger historical frame.
Conclusion
This article has introduced a new liberal theory of global politics and argues that global alignments are
rooted in factors internal to states: status states want expansion and disorder wherever they lack
control; contractualist states want universal stability and order based on the principle of self-
determination for all states. As such, global patterns of war, peace, and cooperation can be explained
without recourse to such external factors as trade interdependence, international institutions, interstate
images, or intersubjective structure; economic norms theory can explain these patterns from states'
internal conditions alone. If this argument is correct, then the relative power of states does determine
the perception of threat, as realists have long maintained, but with an essential qualifi- cation: only
among status states. In this way, internal conditions can explain why 2,400 years ago Sparta feared the
rising power of Athens, and why today the distribution of power seems to be playing an ever reduced
role in global politics.
My analyses of most states from 1946 to 2010 corroborate the prediction of a liberal global hierarchy
managed by a natural alliance of states with contractualist economies. States with contractualist and
export-oriented economies tend to agree on issues voted on in the United Nations General Assembly,
regardless of their power status or capability, because they have common interests in a global order
based on self-determination. Among states with status and insular economies, in contrast, major powers
and those with greater capability are more likely to balance the contractualist hegemony, which they
fear. Meanwhile, minor powers and those with less capability are more likely to bandwagon with it,
which they fear less than they do the status major powers.
Additionally, the theory provides an explanation for a large number of observed facts in international
politics. It can explain the decline of war. It can explain the United States' enduring soft power, and why
its leadership continues utterly unchallenged by other market powers, despite its relative economic
decline since the mid-twentieth century. It offers an account for why developing states with weak
institutions tend to bandwagon with the Western powers;87 and why land powers tend to provoke
counterbalancing coalitions, and sea powers, which tend to be trading powers, do not.88 It can account
for the democratic peace; why democracies tend to win theirwars; and why the probability of war
among market democracies is practically zero. It can explain how states become prosperous; how
democracy consolidates; the tenacity of corruption in developing countries; why Western powers
reproach their clients for their corruption;89 and why states fail. It can explain global terrorism and anti-
Americanism.90
If the theory is right, war is becoming obsolete, and not for reasons supposed in most international
relations theorizing. There is no security dilemma in international politics, as realists contend there is:
relative power reliably matters only to leaders of status states, which always consider all other states
enemies. Yet, the trajectory of peace is not at all caused by democracy, trade, or international
institutions, as liberals maintain. As argued here, democracy, trade, and institutions are epiphenomenal.
Contractualist economies are not the only explanation for these factors, but they are a cause of
democratic consolidation, foreign policy preferences for equitable trade, and international organization.
Leaders of contractualist states assess threats based not on their images of other states' regime types,
economic types, or their capabilities, but on their behavior.
What economic norms theory cannot explain is the triggering environmental and political origins of
economic change. Although the theory predicts systemic effects (contractualist hegemony) on unit-level
change (national transitions toward contractualist economies), it cannot predict when and where
leaders of status and axial states might seek to support the market; when and where contractualist
economies will emerge; or when and where systemic effects will result in changes in the units. The
theory treats economic change largely exogenously.91
Thus, the theory cannot predict what China will do in the future, because it is impossible to know
whether it will become a contractualist power. The theory can predict, however, that conflict with China
is not inevitable, and that it can be avoided if the contractualist powers do not confuse China's
mercantilist pursuits with incipient revisionism, and if they grasp that China's leadership increasingly has
interests in the global market order. If China transitions to a contractualist economy—and such a
prospect is likely if current trends continue—the proportion of people in the contractualist mind-set
worldwide will more than double, from 16 percent to 35 percent. This would greatly increase the speed
of the trajectory toward peace, as long as the planet can ecologically sustain the contractualist
economies' high levels of productivity.
Russia, in contrast, is the natural enemy of the contractualist hegemony: its status economy encourages
the sowing of chaos anywhere Russia lacks control, putting it in direct opposition to the contractualists'
interest in order. Russia has a substantial nuclear arsenal, but this does not diminish the overwhelming
might of the contractualist hegemony, because nuclear weapons can be used rationally only to deter
attacks. Contractualist states do not attack states to make them contractualist, so Russia's deterrent
capability has no effect on the power of this hegemony and the trajectory of peace.
Since the defeat of the Axis powers in 1945, an alliance of contractualist states has sought to impose a
global order based on the principle of self-determination—a principle that applies to all states, large and
small. This global order is increasing the odds of states transitioning from status to contractualist
economies and reducing the odds of reverse transitions. In this way, economic norms theory supports
the proposition that the world may be nearing half a millennium of change that began with the rise of
axial markets in northwestern Europe around 1450. If the theory is correct, the beginning of the end of
this change may have been the emergence of the contractualist hegemony in the mid-twentieth
century. This article has argued that no status power could ever overtake the combined might of this
hegemony. Thus, barring some dark force that brings about a collapse of the global economy, the world
is now in the endgame of a five-century-long trajectory toward permanent peace and prosperity.
7---Alt fails---capitalism is ingrained.

Bryant 12—Professor of Philosophy at Collin College (Levi, “We’ll Never Do Better Than a Politician:
Climate Change and Purity,” https://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/well-never-do-better-
than-a-politician-climate-change-and-purity/, dml)
It is quite true that it is the system of global capitalism or the market that has created our climate
problems (though, as Jared Diamond shows in Collapse, other systems of production have also produced devastating climate problems). In
its insistence on profit and expansion in each economic quarter, markets as currently structured provide no brakes for environmental
destructive actions. The system is itself pathological.
However, pointing this out and deriding market based solutions doesn’t get us very far . In fact, such a
response to proposed market-based solutions is downright dangerous and irresponsible . The fact of the
matter is that 1) we currently live in a market based world , 2) there is not, in the foreseeable future an
alternative system on the horizon, and 3), above all, we need to do something now . We can’t afford
to reject interventions simply because they don’t meet our ideal conceptions of how things should be.
We have to work with the world that is here , not the one that we would like to be here . And here it’s crucial
to note that pointing this out does not entail that we shouldn’t work for producing that other world . It just
means that we have to grapple with the world that is actually there before us .
It pains me to write this post because I remember, with great bitterness, the diatribes hardcore Obama supporters leveled against legitimate
leftist criticisms on the grounds that these critics were completely unrealistic idealists who, in their demand for “purity”, were asking for
“ponies and unicorns”. This rejoinder always seemed to ignore that words have power and that Obama, through his profound power of
rhetoric, had, at least the power to shift public debates and frames, opening a path to making new forms of policy and new priorities possible.
The tragedy was that he didn’t use that power, though he has gotten better.
I do not wish to denounce others and dismiss their claims on these sorts of grounds. As a Marxist anarchists, I do believe that we should fight
for the creation of an alternative hominid ecology or social world. I think that the call to commit and fight, to put alternatives on the table, has
been one of the most powerful contributions of thinkers like Zizek and Badiou. If we don’t commit and fight for alternatives those alternatives
will never appear in the world. Nonetheless, we still have
to grapple with the world we find ourselves in . And it is here, in
my encounters with some Militant Marxists, that I sometimes find it difficult to avoid the conclusion that they are unintentionally
aiding and abetting the very things they claim to be fighting . In their refusal to become impure , to
work with situations or assemblages as we find them,
to sully their hands , they end up reproducing the very system they wish to topple and change .
Narcissistically they get to sit there, smug in their superiority and purity, while everything continues as it did before
because they’ve refused to become politicians or engage in the difficult concrete work of assembling
human and nonhuman actors to render another world possible . As a consequence, they occupy the position of Hegel’s
beautiful soul that denounces the horrors of the world, celebrate the beauty of their soul, while depending on those horrors of the world to
sustain their own position.
To engage in politics is to engage in networks or ecologies of relations between humans and nonhumans. To
engage in ecologies is to descend into networks of causal relations and feedback loops that you cannot
completely master and that will modify your own commitments and actions. But there’s no other way ,
there’s no way around this, and we do need to act now .
1AR
Adv CP !
1AR---Innovation
Income taxes and transfers can’t solve innovation.
Philippe Aghion et al. 21, Aghion is a Professor at the College de France and at the London School of
Economics and a fellow of the Econometric Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences &
Reda Cherif is a Senior Economist at the International Monetary Fund & Hasanov is a Senior Economist
at the International Monetary Fund and an Adjunct Professor of Economics at Georgetown University, 3-
19-21, “Competition, Innovation, and Inclusive Growth,” IMF Working Papers, 2021, Issue 80,
https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2021/080/article-A001-en.xml
Redistribution using taxation and transfers is a key tool in tackling inequality but increasing top personal income tax rates
could potentially undermine the incentive to innovate although further research is needed. One plausible channel would be
through the link between taxation and the “brain drain.” Innovators and skilled workers, who depend mostly on their
human capital as opposed to physical capital, are likely to be highly mobile and particularly sensitive to changes in the tax
regime. This hypothesis is studied by Akcigit, Baslandze, and Stantcheva (2016). They construct an index to compare inventors
in terms of the importance of their invention based on future citations. More citations indicate a greater value of a patent. They find that
there is a negative relationship between the marginal tax rate of the highest income bracket and the
fraction of “superstar” inventors, the top 1 percent according to their index, who remain in their country. This
correlation disappears for the other inventors. This result was confirmed using quasi-natural experiments. For example, the dissolution of
the Soviet Union in 1991 led to a massive migration of inventors and data show that they were more likely
to immigrate to countries where the tax rate was lower . Moreover, Akcigit and others (2018) use a comprehensive dataset
of U.S. patents, citations and inventors since 1920 to track the effects of variation in income and corporate tax rate among U.S. states and
through time. They
find that, everything else being equal, a greater tax rate decreases the number of patents, citations as
well as inventors. At the same time, higher personal income taxes could support various redistribution programs and keep inequality and
poverty lower, helping generate more superstar inventors.
Gangster Antitrust DA
1AR---NUQ
Their ev---Gangster antitrust is happening now---and the aff makes antitrust
enforcement against divestment less likely because it changes the standard to allow
for non-short term price questions
Singer 20 (Hal Singer – adjunct professor at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. <KEN>
"Gangster Antitrust and the Conservative Fight to Burn Fossil Fuels," American Prospect. August 2020.
https://prospect.org/power/gangster-antitrust-and-the-conservative-fight-to-burn-fossil-fuels/)
The modern antitrust movement, as well as the original movements to break up the trusts, empower farmers, or disperse concentration of
economic power generally, certainly reflects a political ideology. Conservative efforts to push back on antitrust enforcement and limit the scope
of antitrust law, known as the “Chicago school” because of the origins of these efforts at the University of Chicago, reflect a political
ideology as well. There is no escaping politics when it comes to antitrust.
While both strands are inherently political, and while the Chicago school arguably subverts the original intent of the Sherman Act and its
successors, neither of these two movements necessarily reflects an abuse of antitrust law.
But anew strand of antitrust has emerged that is more dangerous than the Chicago school. Emanating from
the right, the movement’s architects seek to enforce antitrust law to punish political enemies, cement the
status quo, and preserve, rather than disperse, concentrations of economic power. It is a movement I call
“gangster antitrust.” It is the perversion of antitrust.
In the last four years, antitrust actions have been used by the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (ATR) to attack
marijuana growers because Attorney General William Barr doesn’t like marijuana; to threaten CNN because Donald Trump doesn’t
like what it reports about him; and to harass carmakers cooperating with the state of California around emissions
standards, because of Big Oil climate denialism. More subtle examples of gangsterism include ATR and the Federal Trade Commission
labeling Uber drivers banding together to form a union “price fixing,” and ATR chief Makan Delrahim personally involving himself in completing
the Sprint/T-Mobile merger.
A similar cloud of gangster antitrust recently wafted from the pages of The Wall Street Journal, in the form of a July 15 op-ed by C.
Boyden Gray, a longtime oil-industry lobbyist and conservative intellectual. Gray suggests that a financial institution’s decision
not to loan or invest in fossil fuel companies and projects may be “violating federal antitrust law” by
representing “invitations to collude on a boycott of a critical segment of the U.S. economy.” He singled out decisions made
in recent months by firms like BlackRock and Goldman Sachs to shift investments away from the riskiest fossil fuel
sectors like coal mining and Arctic drilling and toward more sustainable assets.
As a matter of antitrust, Gray’s conspiracy theory holds no water, as each of the institutions likely arrived at the divestiture decision on its own.
In 2000, the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission issued a set of guidelines spelling out the kinds of communications among
rivals that are potentially anti-competitive, including the sharing of competitively sensitive information or entering agreements that facilitate
collusion. Nothing alleged in Gray’s piece comes close to satisfying these criteria.
BlackRock, for instance, has stated unequivocally that its decision to divest from fossil fuel was based on independent analysis of the market.
By Mr. Gray’s twisted logic, any sound business decision, individual or coordinated, that happens to come with climate
benefits could be described as an “invitation to collude on a boycott.” Before it was thrown out, ATR’s bogus investigation into
carmakers relied on a similar perversion of the rules against cartels. It claimed, incredibly, that by working with California to reduce tailpipe
carbon emissions, carmakers were engaging in a conspiracy.
In contrast to Gray’s assertion, BlackRock’s divestment from coal producers, or Goldman Sachs’s decision to not fund coal or Arctic drilling
projects, doesn’t require some grand conspiracy by Wall Street against the fossil fuel industry. It requires looking at a stock
chart. In recent years, independent analyses have confirmed that environmental, social, and governance issues impact a
company’s long-term profitability and therefore should be integrated into investment decisions. Sustainable
funds and companies continue to outperform the S&P 500, a trend that was under way well before the pandemic and especially now.
It is, in fact, individually rational not to invest in fossil fuels. The industry was suffering long before banks began to restrict
financing for certain segments of the coal and oil and gas sector. The industry has underperformed the S&P for 15 years and was indeed the
worst-performing sector in the stock market over the last decade. Wells Fargo’s lending to fossil fuel companies makes up 3 percent of its
portfolio, but accounts for nearly half of its outstanding unpaid loans. Even before COVID, the fossil fuel industry depended on razor-thin
margins and huge amounts of junk debt; the Kansas City Fed has estimated that a small decrease in the price of oil would push 40 percent of oil
and gas producers into bankruptcy. Since COVID, the industry is in even worse shape, as reported by Boston Consulting Group.
Gray’s argument also misses the fact that firms

evaluate risk not only on whether a business is profitable (or not)
today, but also in terms of long-term social and environmental risks . A bank’s support for a company that violates
indigenous sovereignty or human rights, for instance, carries direct financial and legal risks, as well as broader reputational risks, as illustrated
recently by the backlash to banks that financed the Dakota Access Pipeline.
In a 2020 letter to CEOs, BlackRock Chairman Larry Fink wrote: “ These

questions are driving a profound reassessment of
risk and asset values. And because capital markets pull future risk forward, we will see changes in capital allocation more quickly than
we see changes to the climate itself. In the near future—and sooner than most anticipate—there will be a significant reallocation of capital.”
This reallocation of capital away from fossil fuels is happening before our eyes. It reflects a series of independent
business decisions, and it is a good thing for investors and the planet. It should not be thwarted by antitrust
gangsters perverting the law.
DA is non-unique---antitrust is already preventing collaboration to solve warming

Dailey Koga 20. J.D. Candidate, University of Washington Law School. “Teamwork or Collusion?
Changing Antitrust Law to Permit Corporate Action on Climate Change,” University of Washington Law
Review (95): 2017-2022.
The general view among antitrust scholars is that antitrust law is not the proper channel to address regulatory concerns such as environmental
policy.261 Enforcement agencies have viewed agreements involving climate change in the same way as
those involving other ethical and social considerations, stressing that the social benefits of the
agreements cannot be taken into account as procompetitive justifications.262 Further, antitrust jurisprudence
emphasizes that legislative bodies are better suited to address ethical and moral considerations—not the courts.263 The DOJ and
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) may be similarly unfit to determine such matters through non-
enforcement decisions.264 The Supreme Court has said itself that “we may assume that competition is not entirely
conducive to ethical behavior, but that is not a reason, cognizable under the Sherman Act, for doing
away with competition.”265
Other scholars argue that antitrust laws can hinder potential solutions to environmental problems. 266 For example,
Jonathan Adler argues that many environmental problems can be seen as tragedies of the commons —
where every person behaves in a self-interested manner that ultimately creates a detriment to broader
society.267 A tragedy of the commons exists when individuals’ interests are contrary to the community’s interests.268 In the fishing context,
for example, each individual person would benefit from catching as many fish as possible, but broader
society would benefit from limiting each person’s fishing to protect the fish population . Adler explains that
restraints on fishing can solve the tragedy of the commons problem of overfishing.269 Antitrust disallows the creation of some
of these community-oriented restraints. Antitrust laws may therefore exacerbate these types of
environmental problems.270
D. The Auto Industry as a Case Study
Despite the environmental threat posed by lower emissions standards, the DOJ opened an antitrust
investigation into four automakers who came to an agreement with California to heighten vehicle
emissions standards.271 This agreement was in response to the low emissions standards set by the Trump administration—a stark
reversal of those set by the Obama administration.272 The car manufacturers and California stated that an agreement on emissions standards
was necessary due to the nature of the car industry.273 Namely, they argued that the automakers need the ability to predict future emissions
standards to develop appropriate technology and begin to manufacture new vehicles.274 The agreement
was therefore touted as
one that would provide certainty and stability to industry professionals on top of improving automobile
emissions.275
The Justice Department was, at least initially, unwilling to accept that argument.276 Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim made multiple
statements, citing cases such as National Society of Professional Engineers and Superior Trial Court Lawyers to support his argument that
antitrust has never allowed moral considerations to factor into its analyses of potentially anticompetitive agreements.277 Throughout
the
DOJ’s investigation, it remained unclear what their legal argument could rest on. If the automakers had
agreed with California to increase emissions standards, state action immunity would likely protect the
agreement, assuming there was ongoing state supervision. 278 Alternatively, if the automakers agreed with each other to
petition California for higher emissions standards and California complied, the Noerr-Pennington doctrine would likely protect the
agreement.279
At the time, no evidence seemed to exist that the automakers had agreed amongst themselves at all. In fact, California repeatedly emphasized
that each company entered into a separate agreement with the state—not with one another.280 Thus, many believed the investigation was
improper because no agreement between the automakers ever occurred.281 The DOJ dropped the investigation five months later.282
Four months after the DOJ dropped the investigation, a whistleblower from the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division testified in front of the
House Judiciary Committee to notify the committee of his concerns over some recent antitrust investigations conducted by the DOJ, including
the automaker investigation.283 The whistleblower, John Elias, expressed his concern that the DOJ had opened the investigation in response to
a series of tweets by President Trump284 without considering the viability of the claim—in contravention of typical DOJ practice.285 Indeed,
the DOJ opened the investigation on August 22, 2019—one day after Trump’s tweets criticizing the automakers’
agreement with California.286 In response to the whistleblower’s testimony, Assistant Attorney General Delrahim wrote a letter
explaining that (1) the investigation was proper and narrowly tailored, (2) the timing of Trump’s tweet was purely coincidental, and (3) political
appointees are fully capable of running the Justice Department.287 He also made clear that the DOJ terminated the investigation because the
department found that the automakers had never entered into an agreement.288
The automakers in this case escaped prosecution, but the

DOJ’s inquiry alone may have made the agreement less
effective than it otherwise would have been. It was reported that at least one car manufacturer backed out
of the agreement as a result of the agency’s scrutiny.289 Additionally, California had to go out of its way to emphasize that
each company reached a separate agreement with the state.290 But despite the parties’ efforts to ensure the deal would not attract antitrust
scrutiny, the DOJ persisted in its investigation.291 Based on these actions, it seems that the companies
felt largely constrained by
antitrust laws, struggled to get around them, and still ended up the target of a probe by the DOJ.
The automobile industry is one industry that could be transformed if

antitrust regulations were relaxed even slightly . Auto
emissions were the largest contributor to greenhouse gas pollution in the United States in 2017 .292 This is
true despite efforts by lawmakers and the EPA over the last half-century to curb auto emissions.293 Further, the frequent change in
administration in the US means regulatory standards are constantly shifting. This makes it difficult for industries like the automobile industry to
predict future needs and invest in environmentally friendly innovations.294
In the case of the automakers in California, an antitrust

exemption for agreements with positive environmental
effects may have persuaded more than four automakers to join the agreement . But there is, of course, a downside
to this type of agreement in the auto industry: higher emissions standards could reduce consumer choice and increase the cost of purchasing a
vehicle. This may leave some consumers unable to afford their preferred car. But given
the existential threat of climate
change, perhaps the long-term benefits outweigh these short-term costs.
Our understanding of both economics and climate change continues to develop. The Chicago School vision of the rational person and self-
correcting markets has started to give way to the study of behavioral economics.295 Even more importantly, climate change
continues to worsen, and people generally agree that it poses an existential threat to our planet .296
Allowing for some cooperation among competitors could help address some of our climate change
concerns.
IV. SUSTAINABILITY AGREEMENTS WITH OR WITHOUT AN EXEMPTION
Congress has the ability to codify exemptions to antitrust laws and has done so numerous times in the past.297
Congress should pass an exemption to antitrust law for sustainability agreements using the Dutch
Guidelines as a model. This would allow companies to enter into agreements addressing climate change
without fear of antitrust litigation . While this type of exemption may increase the risk of cartel behavior, keeping the exemption
narrowly tailored and requiring quantitative evidence of sustainability benefits can mitigate those anticompetitive concerns. In the meantime,
litigants should frame sustainability agreements in economic terms to survive antitrust scrutiny and can use past precedent as a model to do so.
A. Congress Should Pass a Sustainability Exemption
Congress should adopt an antitrust exemption for sustainability agreements similar to that proposed in the Netherlands.298 For agreements
that have anticompetitive effects, Congress can require companies to meet the four main requirements suggested by the Dutch: (1) the
agreement must have sustainability benefits, (2) the ultimate consumer must receive “a fair share of
those benefits,” (3) the restraint on competition must not be greater than necessary to achieve those
benefits, and (4) the agreement must not eliminate “a substantial part of the products/services in
question.”299
While the broad proposal from the Netherlands represents the most ideal solution, Congress could change the exemption in two ways that
would be more consistent with current precedent and also limit the risk of cartel behavior. First, the exception could require companies to
always have quantitative data showing a certain threshold of environmental benefits, regardless of market share. Requiring quantitative
data that shows benefits to a certain threshold could reduce arbitrary results. It could also help to partially ensure that the
agreement is not a cover for a cartel in that the environmental impacts would have to be real, not just suggested or purported.
1AR---Politicization---NUQ
Politicization inevitable.
the Forgotten Political Dimension of Antitrust Law,” University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 87, Issue 2,
The insights from microeconomics and industrial organization have been extremely helpful to the
development of modern antitrust law, yet they often fail to produce the degree of certainty and
predictability that their proponents of the economic, technocratic vision of antitrust law tend to ascribe
to them. In particular, many antitrust cases—such as the cases discussed earlier— involve circumstances
in which the economic impact of the impugned conduct is far from clear, despite the fact that in many
such cases both parties are aided by equally well-trained economists presenting similarly valid yet
opposing models, backed by similarly inconclusive evidence. Yet courts and regulators must reach a
conclusion, and the outcome of the case might depend on the decisionmaker’s political priors or on
some default rules regarding burdens of proof, which are equally laden with political preferences. The
fact that one can easily predict the outcome of antitrust cases in the United States based on the
political leanings of the judges deciding them (and the identity of the president who nominated them)
should also lead us to question whether contemporary antitrust is indeed technocratic rather than
political or ideological.
Politicization inevitable---consumer welfare is an ideological principle.

John M. Newman 19, Professor of Law specializing in antitrust and competition law at the University
of Miami, 9-25-19, “Reactionary Antitrust,” Concurrences Revue, No. 4,
https://ssrn.com/abstract=3454807 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3454807
*“Reactionary Antitrust” is a “fitting descriptor for arguments that critique progressive reformers in
ways that are unlikely to prompt further dialogue.”
A. “The Howling Horde of Populists at the Gate”
Reactionary Antitrust demeans the new critics as “populists” while apparently remaining blind to its
own populist arguments and inherently ideological and political positions.43 It portrays the new critical
movement as an “assault”44 by “self-righteous and sanctimonious”45 “revolutionaries at the gate.”46
This rather frightening group has apparently been, among other things, “demonizing the elites,”47
calling for “a total rejection” of “economic methodology and evidencebased policy,”48 and
“threaten[ing] to send antitrust enforcement careening backwards in time.”49 Hipster Antitrust, we are
told “ultimately would once again plunge antitrust into crisis.”50
The populist horde is, of course, diametrically opposed by the antitrust “insiders.”51 At least according
to Reactionary Antitrust, the “insiders” prefer antitrust policy that is “ amoral,”52 neutral, “evidence-
based,” 53 and—above all else—neither “populist” nor “political.”54
In light of the resounding victory of legal realism in the Twentieth Century, this is a very curious position
to take. The old formalist notion that law is simply deduced from general principles in a neutral fashion
was laid to rest decades ago, at least among serious legal scholars.55 In fact, Reactionary Antitrust may
be the very last bastion of this line of thought in existence today.
Consider, for example, the argument that adopting the consumer-welfare standard was about
“legitimacy and accountability, not disguised political choices.”56 Antitrust law, which explicitly deals
with the allocation and abuse of power in society, is inherently political. The following quote explains
this rather obvious point quite well: “[Antitrust] is . . . an expression of a social philosophy, an educative
force, and a political symbol of extraordinary potency. “57 The authors? None other than Robert Bork
and Ward Bowman—hardly hipsters.
Even if adoption of the consumer-welfare standard were motivated solely by concerns about
“legitimacy and accountability,” the choice to elevate those goals over other possible alternatives
would itself be a political choice. 58 Moreover, these supposedly favored goals are themselves inchoate
and therefore contestable. “Accountable” to whom? “Legitimate” according to whom? Such questions
cannot be answered in an apolitical fashion—certainly not in the context of making antitrust law, which
entails deciding how society allocates power and, by extension, scarce resources.59 How could the
choice of how best to shape and apply such a law be anything but a political choice?
To be clear, the present discussion is not advancing the claim that one side or the other is or is not
“political”. But a critique of one set of positions as “political” when all positions are necessarily so seems
unlikely to lead to fruitful dialogue. By insisting that it—and it alone—is somehow apolitical and neutral,
Reactionary Antitrust exhibits a pronounced failure to look itself in the mirror.
Politicization inevitable---the economic science underpinning the consumer welfare

standard is Chicago School propaganda that’s skewed towards corporate rights.
Barak Orbach 19, Professor of Law at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law,
November 2019, “The Consumer Welfare Controversy,” CPI Antitrust Chronicle,
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3489458
(4) The Reorientation of the Antitrust Paradox. Until the adoption of the CW standard, antitrust’s “basic
premises were flatly inconsistent with one another, some of them leading to the preservation of
competition and others to its suppression.”31 For example, courts frequently said that antitrust law
intended “to promote competition through the protection of viable, small, locally owned business,”
recognizing that the “maintenance of fragmented industries and markets” may result in “occasional
higher costs and prices.”32 Bork forcefully pointed out that the maintenance of fragmented industries
and protection of small competitors did not serve consumers.
The transformation of antitrust law, however, did not resolve the conflict between policies that
preserve competition and policies that suppress competition. It merely aligned the antitrust paradox
with laissez faire convictions rather than fairness sentiments. The present guiding principle of antitrust
law rests on the belief that, in antitrust law, the costs of false positives are prohibitively high, whereas
the costs of false negatives are negligible. Other premises follow this belief: markets self-correct through
entry; business practices prevalent in competitive markets, such as vertical restraints, are unlikely harm
competition; market concentration has no effect on competition; cartels are unstable; agreements
concerning intellectual property rights encourage innovation; and exclusionary practices are not
economically viable.
V. THE GREAT MARKETING PLOY

Standing alone, the CW standard could be useful to evaluate harm to competition. But, as explained,
together with the accompanying premises that direct antitrust law, the CW standard is a misleading
concept. The present constellation of antitrust premises and labels dresses ideological convictions in
economic narrative.
The transformation of antitrust law in recent decades was an element of a general trend in American
jurisprudence. Since the mid-1970s, and at a faster pace since the 2005 confirmation of Chief Justice
Roberts, the U.S. Supreme Court has been persistently expanding corporate rights at the expense of
individual rights, while increasingly relying on formalistic reasoning. The Court’s antitrust jurisprudence
has evolved in a similar fashion. Since the mid-1970s, the Court has been persistently narrowing the
scope of antitrust law and adopting procedural standards that are favorable to antitrust defendants.
The distinctiveness of the transformation of antitrust law is in the belief that it was guided by sound
economic principles. The Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that it feels “relatively free to revise”
antitrust precedents, “as economic understanding evolves” and, therefore, antitrust precedents have
“less-than-usual force.”33 Scholars and practitioners often say that the transformation of antitrust law
turned the discipline into a “branch of economics.”34 These declarations are largely rhetorical. They
echo assertions of the Chicago School, an advocacy arm of the laissez faire movement.35 The decline of
the Chicago School in the past three decades and the broad renunciation of its core premises are yet to
influence the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence, including its approach to antitrust law. Present antitrust
law is far more consistent with the Court’s protective approach to corporate rights than with
economics.
Two impressive accomplishments of the Chicago School obfuscated the ideological nature of its
premises and policy prescriptions. First, presenting laissez faire beliefs as scientific economic
principles, the Chicago School successfully promoted a false equivalence between economics and
ideological objections to legal restrictions on private economic activities. Second, Chicagoans and their
followers established an erroneous premise that, in antitrust law, “populism” means liberal antipathy to
business, implying that the Chicago Revolution was not populist. Laissez faire advocates have used these
misleading propositions to advance a third claim: lax antitrust enforcement rests on sound economic
policies, whereas vigorous enforcement reflects unfocused political agenda and noneconomic
values.36 The CW standard exemplifies this dubious technique of marketing political agenda through
quasi-scientific narrative.37
Adv 1
China bad
China can’t lead and the transition sparks conflict
Chas W. Freeman 17---Ambassador to the Middle East Policy Council from London, UK, “China's
Challenge to American Hegemony,” Middle East Policy Council, https://www.mepc.org/speeches/chinas-
challenge-american-hegemony
The current self-congratulatory mood in China is therefore entirely understandable. Yet it masks the
underlying weakness of the Chinese political system. Government in contemporary China derives its
legitimacy almost entirely from its ability to deliver continued rapid economic growth. It stands for no
credible values, neither trusts nor is trusted by those it rules, suffers from a high level of corruption, and
has no clear vision for self-improvement. If America's politics are widely viewed as so venal as to be
dysfunctional, the Chinese system is seen as cynically manipulative and of questionable legitimacy.
Without political reform, China will remain vulnerable to unrest should the economy falter. If there is
no rule of law in China, Beijing's word will be doubted abroad. Despite its economic successes and growing defense
capabilities, China's international influence will remain limited as long as it fails to evolve an attractive political system. It is not impossible that it may do so but
there is no evidence at present to suggest that it will.
A Chinese perception that the United States is attempting to leverage its military superiority to keep China
down could goad Beijing into efforts to dislodge America from its position of global dominance. Given the
continuing disparities in national power, the ensuing struggle would be a long one. The trigger would probably be
some incident derived from U.S. military operations offshore China or from the Taiwan issue, to which Sino-American relations remain hostage. This is unlikely, but,
unfortunately, it is not impossible to imagine.
As I speak, for example, China is actively considering how to put effective pressure on the United States to halt arms sales to Taiwan. China wants Washington to live
up to Ronald Reagan's commitment to restrain and reduce such sales in return for credible pursuit by Beijing of a peaceful settlement of its differences with Taipei.
Sanctions on selected American companies — modeled on those the U.S. Congress has imposed on Chinese companies selling objectionable items to others — are
apparently among the options before China's leaders. In the current economic climate, any such move by China could trigger a nasty confrontation and unleash an
orgy of American protectionist retaliation that would likely set off a trade war. I do not consider such a development likely. If nothing else, however, the possible
consequences of miscalculation by Beijing or Washington illustrate the global stake in continuing prudent management of the Sino-American relationship by both
sides.
It is important to see China as it is, not as we wish or fear it to be. In 1943, President Franklin Roosevelt declared that China
"has become one of the great Democracies of the world." That was nonsense, of course. But so, I believe, are perceptions of China as an emerging anti-democratic
hegemon. The
more likely prospect is that China will take its place alongside the United States and others at
the head of a multilateralized system of global governance. In such an oligarchic world order, China will
have great prestige but no monopoly on power comparable to that which the United States has
recently enjoyed.
America has already lost its global political hegemony. But, for all the reasons I have mentioned, China
is neither inclined nor
capable of succeeding to this role. The Anglo-American financial model is much tarnished by recent
events. But no alternative to it has yet emerged. It seems certain that whatever does replace it will be crafted by many
hands, only some of which will be Chinese. American consumption is no longer the sole driver of the global economy. The China market has
come to play an important part in sustaining world growth. But China is not the only economy that is rising. In some areas of global trade and
investment, China will be a dominant factor. In others, it will not be. In the military arena, even if fiscal limitations force retrenchment, the
United States will, for many years to come, remain the only power with global reach.
Transition war
Even U.S. perception of losing to China causes hegemonic war
Min-hyung Kim 19, associate professor of political science and international relations at Kyung Hee
University in Seoul, 2019, “A real driver of US–China trade conflict: The Sino–US competition for global
hegemony and its implications for the future,” International Trade, Politics, and Development, Vol. 3,
No. 1, p. 30-40
Since the end of the Second World War, the USA has undoubtedly been a global hegemon. With its preponderant
military and economic strength, it has created a liberal international economic order and maintained it by
promoting global free trade. USA sudden turn to protectionism under the banner of “America First” in the Trump
administration illustrates “US fear” that its hegemony or Pax Americana is declining vis-à-vis China’s growing
power. It also demonstrates that the USA now seeks to deter China from overtaking its hegemony so as to keep
US hegemony as long as possible.
Currently, the USA and China are waging a trade war. What is important to note here is that the driving force of the trade war
between the world’s two largest economies is more political than economic. That is to say, as China’s economic and
political influence in the world vis-à-vis that of the USA increases, US fear about China’s power also grows.
Under these circumstances, Washington makes every effort to assert its global dominance by deterring
China’s challenge to its hegemony[13]. It is this sort of “US fear” about hegemonic power transition from
Washington to Beijing that brought about US policies against the BRI, the AIIB, and Made in China 2015 .
The fear of hegemonic power transition is indeed a driving force for the US-launched trade war. Understood this way, the trade war
between the USA and China may be a harbinger of a much larger-scale conflict between the two parties , since as
PTT predicts, war is more likely to occur when the power gap between a declining hegemon and a rising
challenger is getting closed.
As China’s economic, technological, military and political rise continues down the road, the USA will try to
contain it in order to maintain its global hegemony . The obvious consequence of this seesaw game is the intensification of
the Sino–US competition over global hegemony. The USA and China, the two most powerful states in the world, appear as if they were on a
collision course. What this means is that so
long as US fear about China’s overtaking US hegemony persists , a
similar type of conflict between the two hegemonic powers is likely to occur in the future even if the
current trade war is over
Adv 2
Ch Econ
Best data proves no Chinese diversionary war
Alastair Iain Johnston 17, the James Albert Noe and Linda Noe Laine Professor of China in World
Affairs at Harvard University, Winter 2016/17, “Is Chinese Nationalism Rising? Evidence from Beijing,”
International Security, Vol. 41, No. 3, p. 7-43
The rising nationalism meme is one element in the narrative of a “newly assertive China” that generalizes from China's
coercive diplomacy in maritime space to claims that a dissatisfied China is challenging a U.S.-dominated liberal
international order writ large.5 Rising nationalism, in this narrative, constrains the Chinese leadership and helps
explain its more militantly realpolitik or noncooperative behaviors , as well as China's more proactive challenges to
international “rules of the game.”6 In addition, rising popular nationalism has led many U.S. government officials to
worry that the Chinese leadership will engage in diversionary conflict when China's economic growth
slows.7 Thus the rising nationalism meme is an important element of an even larger emerging narrative about a revisionist China.
Using an original time-series survey dataset from Beijing and a range of indicators of nationalism extending
back to 1998, I conduct five different tests of the claim about China's rising nationalism . The analysis shows
that there has not been a continuously rising level of nationalism among the survey respondents. Indeed, most
indicators show a decline in levels of nationalism since around 2009. Moreover, contrary to the conventional wisdom, the data do
not show that China's youth express higher levels of nationalism than older generations. Indeed, it is China's older generations that are more
nationalistic than its youth. These
findings—with due regard for caveats about representativeness— suggest that rising popular
nationalism may not be a critically important variable constraining Chinese foreign policy .
The findings from the survey have a number of implications. First, they suggest that China's
coercive diplomacy in maritime
disputes over the last few years is unlikely to be a driven by rising popular nationalism . A list of more likely explanations
includes the search for energy, fishing rights, the organizational interests of the military and of maritime law enforcement, leaders’ preferences,
elite nationalism, Chinese reactions to actions by other maritime claimants, an emerging U.S.-China security dilemma, and growing naval
capabilities. Second, the
findings suggest that rising popular nationalism is unlikely to spur Chinese leaders to
engage in diversionary conflict in the face of an economic slowdown.8
***FOOTNOTE 8***
8.New research suggests that China has engaged in controlled diversionary conflict in reaction to elite,
rather than mass, dissatisfaction with the state of the economy. The regime, however, tries to minimize the
destabilizing effect of these actions on relations with other states. See Erin Baggott, “Four Essays in Computational
Approaches to Autocratic Politics,” Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 2016.
***END FOOTNOTE 8***
On a number of measures, levels of Chinese

nationalism have stagnated or dropped since around 2009, even as annual
economic growth rates have declined somewhat. Finally, the findings underscore that analysis of Chinese foreign
policy has to be more consciously self-critical of the assumptions, conventional wisdoms, and memes
that are circulated in the media , among pundits, and in academia. They also confirm that these elements are being rapidly reproduced
in an era of digital and social media. Given the implications for stability in U.S.-China relations of the emergence of a “revisionist China” meme
in the United States and of a “containing China” meme in China, it is especially important that scholars examine emerging conventional
wisdoms and viral memes carefully and with a variety of data and methods.
No Failed States Impact---1NC
No impact to failed states
Stewart M Patrick 11, Senior Fellow, Director of the Program on International Institutions and Global
Governance at the Council on Foreign Relations, 4/15/2011, “Why Failed States Shouldn’t Be Our Biggest
National Security Fear,” http://www.cfr.org/international-peace-and-security/why-failed-states-
shouldnt-our-biggest-national-security-fear/p24689
In truth, while failed

states may be worthy of America's attention on humanitarian and development grounds, most of them are irrelevant to U.S.
national security. The risks
they pose are mainly to their own inhabitants. Sweeping claims to the contrary are
not only inaccurate but distracting and unhelpful, providing little guidance to policymakers seeking to prioritize
scarce attention and resources.
In 2008, I collaborated with Brookings Institution senior fellow Susan E. Rice, now President Obama's permanent representative to the United Nations, on an
index of state weakness in developing countries. The study ranked all 141 developing nations on 20 indicators of state
strength, such as the government's ability to provide basic services. More recently, I've examined whether these rankings reveal
anything about each nation's role in major global threats: transnational terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction, international crime and infectious disease.
The findings are startlingly clear. Only a handful of the world's failed states pose security concerns to the United States. Far greater dangers
emerge from stronger developing countries that may suffer from corruption and lack of government accountability but come nowhere
near qualifying as failed states.
The link between failed states and transnational terrorism, for instance, is tenuous. Al-Qaeda franchises are
concentrated in South Asia, North Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia but are markedly absent in most failed states , including in sub-Saharan
Africa. Why? From a terrorist's perspective, the notion of finding haven in a failed state is an oxymoron. Al-Qaeda
discovered this in the 1990s when seeking a foothold in anarchic Somalia. In intercepted cables, operatives bemoaned the insuperable
difficulties of working under chaos, given their need for security and for access to the global financial and
communications infrastructure. Al-Qaeda has generally found it easier to maneuver in corrupt but functional states, such as Kenya, where sovereignty
provides some protection from outside interdiction.
Pakistan and Yemen became sanctuaries for terrorism not only because they are weak but because their
governments lack the will to launch sustained counterterrorism operations against militants whom they value for other purposes.
Terrorists also need support from local power brokers and populations. Along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, al-Qaeda finds succor in the Pashtun code of
pashtunwali, which requires hospitality to strangers, and in the severe brand of Sunni Islam practiced locally. Likewise in Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
has found sympathetic tribal hosts who have long welcomed mujaheddin back from jihadist struggles.
Al-Qaeda has met less success in northern Africa's Sahel region, where a moderate, Sufi version of Islam dominates. But as
the organization evolves
from a centrally directed network to a diffuse movement with autonomous cells in dozens of countries, it is as likely to find haven in
the banlieues of Paris or high-rises of Minneapolis as in remote Pakistani valleys.
What about failed states and weapons of mass destruction? Many U.S. analysts worry that poorly governed countries will pursue nuclear, biological,
chemical or radiological weapons; be unable to control existing weapons; or decide to share WMD materials.
These fears are misplaced. With two notable exceptions — North Korea and Pakistan — the world's weakest states pose minimal
proliferation risks, since they have limited stocks of fissile or other WMD material and are unlikely to pursue
them. Far more threatening are capable countries (say, Iran and Syria) intent on pursuing WMD, corrupt nations (such as Russia)
that possess loosely secured nuclear arsenals and poorly policed nations (try Georgia) through which proliferators can smuggle illicit materials or
weapons.
When it comes to crime, the story is more complex. Failed states do dominate production of some narcotics: Afghanistan cultivates the lion's share of global opium,
and war-torn Colombia rules coca production. The tiny African failed state of Guinea-Bissau has become a transshipment point for cocaine bound for Europe. (At
one point, the contraband transiting through the country each month was equal to the nation's gross domestic product.) And Somalia, of course, has seen an
explosion of maritime piracy. Yet failed
states have little or no connection with other categories of transnational crime, from
human trafficking to money laundering , intellectual property theft, cyber-crime or counterfeiting of manufactured
goods.
Criminal networks typically prefer operating in functional countries that provide baseline political order as well
as opportunities to corrupt authorities. They also accept higher risks to work in nations straddling major
commercial routes. Thus narco-trafficking has exploded in Mexico, which has far stronger institutions than many developing nations but borders the
United States. South Africa presents its own advantages. It is a country where “the first and the developing worlds exist side by side,” author
Misha Glenny writes. “The first world provides good roads, 728 airports . . . the largest cargo port in Africa, and an efficient banking system. . . . The
developing world accounts for the low tax revenue, overstretched social services, high levels of corruption
throughout the administration, and 7,600 kilometers of land and sea borders that have more holes than a second-hand dartboard.” Weak and
failing African states, such as Niger, simply cannot compete.

Nor do failed states pose the greatest threats of pandemic disease. Over the past decade, outbreaks of SARS, avian influenza and swine flu have raised the specter
that fast-moving pandemics could kill tens of millions worldwide. Failed states, in this regard, might seem easy incubators of deadly viruses. In fact, recent fast-onset
pandemics have bypassed most failed states, which are relatively isolated from the global trade and transportation links needed to spread disease rapidly.
Certainly, the world's weakest states — particularly in sub-Saharan Africa — suffer disproportionately from disease, with infection rates higher than in the
rest of the world. But their principal health challenges are endemic diseases with local effects, such as malaria,
measles and tuberculosis. While U.S. national security officials and Hollywood screenwriters obsess over the gruesome Ebola and
Marburg viruses, outbreaks of these hemorrhagic fevers are rare and self-contained.
I do not counsel complacency. The world's richest nations have a moral obligation to bolster health systems in Africa, as the Obama administration is doing through
its Global Health Initiative. And they have a duty to ameliorate the challenges posed by HIV/AIDS, which continues to ravage many of the world's weakest states. But
poor performance by developing countries in preventing, detecting and responding to infectious disease is often shaped less by
budgetary and infrastructure constraints than by conscious decisions by unaccountable or unresponsive regimes.
Such deliberate inaction has occurred not only in the world's weakest states but also in stronger developing countries, even in
promising democracies. The list is long. It includes Nigeria's feckless response to a 2003-05 polio epidemic, China's lack of candor
about the 2003 SARS outbreak, Indonesia's obstructionist attitude to addressing bird flu in 2008 and South Africa's denial for many years
about the causes of HIV/AIDS.
Unfortunately, misperceptions about the dangers of failed states have transformed budgets and bureaucracies.
U.S. intelligence agencies are mapping the world's “ungoverned spaces.” The Pentagon has turned its regional Combatant Commands into platforms to head off
state failure and address its spillover effects. The new Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review completed by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for
International Development depicts fragile and conflict-riddled states as epicenters of terrorism, proliferation, crime and disease.
Yet such preoccupations reflect more hype than analysis. U.S. national security officials would be better served
— and would serve all of us better — if they turned their strategic lens toward stronger developing countries, from which transnational threats
are more likely to emanate.
2AC – China Model Bad
Unchecked spread of China’s model collapses global internet effectiveness
Samm Sacks 18, Cybersecurity Policy and China Digital Economy Fellow at New America, 6/18/18,
“Beijing Wants to Rewrite the Rules of the Internet,”
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/06/zte-huawei-china-trump-trade-
cyber/563033/
Other countries, meanwhile, have adopted only parts of China’s law. Independent of Beijing, Russia has forged a model akin to
China’s, embracing an intrusive government role in cyberspace including the most expansive data localization and surveillance regime in the
world. Last week Vietnam
adopted a cybersecurity law that mirrors China’s. India has imposed some
indigenous technical standards, and is considering legislation to enact domestic-sourcing requirements
for cybersecurity technologies.
China’s model appeals to these countries because it provides them with tools to take control of an open
internet. Online platforms used for terrorism and political dissent threaten national stability. The Edward Snowden revelations and crippling
cyber attacks like WannaCry and Mirai create a sense of vulnerability that China’s model promises to fix.
The most alluring feature of the China model appears to be content control , as a broad range of China’s neighbors
and partners engage in blocking, filtering, and manipulating internet content. Also alluring: its rules for storing data on servers in-country, which
can help law enforcement and intelligence officials get access to user information.
The problem with China’s model is that it crashes headlong into the foundational principles of the
internet in market-based democracies: online freedom, privacy, free international markets, and broad
international cooperation. China’s model may also not even be effective in delivering on its promises. For
example, government-imposed content-control measures have proven to be poor tools in fighting online extremism. Filtering or
removing online content has been compared to a game of “whack-a-mole,” making it ineffective and
cost-prohibitive. Such controls also suppress countervailing discourse from key anti-extremism influencers, which have proven to be
effective in offering compelling alternative narratives and discrediting extremist ideas.
The implications for the strength and resilience of the global internet ecosystem are troubling. China’s control-
driven model defies international openness, interoperability, and collaboration, the foundations of global
internet governance and, ultimately, of the internet itself. The 21st Century will see a battle of whether it is the China
model or the more inclusive, transparent, collaborative principles that underpinned the internet’s rise that come to dominate global
cybersecurity governance.

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1AC

Market Concentration ADV

And with the COVID-19 pandemic, society

Figure 1. Broadly Defined Profit Rate in Manufacturing, 1958–2011 (index, 1958 = 1)

Figure 3. Broadly Defined Profit Rate and Capital Accumulation in Manufacturing

Figure 4. Share of Investment in Broadly Defined Profit, 1958–2011 (Index, 1958 = 1)

Concentration and Profitability in Manufacturing

Sectors ranked by Concentration-4.

Sectors ranked by Concentration-4.

Sectors ranked by Concentration-4.

Figure 8. Capital Accumulation

Those who fail in the struggle against irrelevance would constitute a

THE AI REVOLUTION CREATING UNPRECEDENTED INEQUALITY BETWEEN CLASSES AND COUNTRIES

THE RISE OF DIGITAL DICTATORSHIPS AND GLOBAL MONITORING

THE WORLD CUP: AN EFFECTIVE MODEL FOR GLOBAL COOPERATION

If you like the World Cup — you are already a globalist.

But what exactly is a global system? Our

Economic stressors, in transcendent VUCA fashion, may

In the final analysis, COVID-19 is

Environmentally-devastating industrial sabotages – whether by disgruntled workers, industrial competitors, ideological

Meltdowns cause extinction

Inequality turns every other impact, including existential terror.

And while our scale may now be global, collapse

The rungless ladder

Every increment of social wealth reduces extinction risk through resilience.

Consolidation in agricultural markets undermines regenerative agriculture---only

I. Regenerative Farming is Reducing Emissions, Bolstering Biodiversity, and Increasing

Food Security, a Critical Practice to create a Climate Resilient Future

In addition to harming farmers, agricultural

AND, killer acquisitions are crushing innovation---the AFF solves.

Industrial ag ensures extinction

Insect “death by a thousand cuts”

Antitrust is key---it is authorizing concentration which subverts any other control

This paper considers two different ways that antitrust has

IV Conclusion: Using Antitrust to Re-balance Power in Labor Markets

* Wage-or price-discriminate among customers, suppliers, or workers;

* Impede or control entry by would-be competitors; or

In addition to the core focus on consumer welfare, European jurisprudence has

On a practical level, both

Collapses internet openness---extinction

In Dubai, two deeply worrisome trends came to a head.

That’s why we believe that the

It causes surveillance that chills innovation---extinction

IV. THREE EXAMPLES OF ALLEGED PLATFORM ABUSE

Summarizing the changes caused by the demotions, the Commission said:

What might the AmEx case add to the analysis? AmEx

On February 7, 2019, the

The Harm to Competition

Facebook’s Conduct Poses a Competition Problem

C. Start-Ups: Nipping Competition in the Bud

There are three reasons why the

Moving away from consumer welfare reinvigorates US leadership in antitrust

1. Look Before You Leap

[*204] 2. Avoid Bullying

1. Low Prices, Efficiency and The Competitive Process

2. A Symmetric Welfare Standard in Practice

b) Merger of two paper manufacturing firms

d) Merger of two large food retail chains

e) Powerful buyers’ predatory or exclusionary conduct

END FOOTNOTE 8