#Capitalism#Monopolies#Antitrust#Competition: "Capitalism's theory proceeds from the idea that we are driven by our self-interest, and that competition turns self-interest into communal sentiment. Take away the competition, and all that's left is the self-interest.
I think this is broadly true, even though it's not the main reason I oppose monopolies (I oppose monopolies because they corrupt our democracy and pauperize workers). But even if capitalism's ability to turn greed into public benefit isn't the principle that's uppermost in my mind, it's what capitalists claim to believe – and treasure.
I think that most of the right's defense of monopolies stems from cynical, bad-faith rationalizations – but there are people who've absorbed these rationalizations and find them superficially plausible. It's worth developing these critiques, for their sake."
#LiveNation#TicketMaster#Antitrust#Monopolies: "It's been a minute since Ticketmaster was last in the news, so let's recap. Ticketmaster bought out most of its ticketing rivals, then merged with Live Nation, the country's largest concert promoter, and bought out many of the country's largest music, stage, and sports venues. They used this iron grip on the entire supply chain for performances and events to pile innumerable junk fees on every ticket sold, while drastically eroding the wages of the creative workers they nominally represented. They created a secret secondary market for tickets and worked with ticket-touts to help them run bots that bought every ticket within an instant of the opening of ticket sales, then ran an auction marketplace that made them gigantic fees on every re-sold ticket – fees the performers were not entitled to share in.
The Ticketmaster/Live Nation/venue octopus is nearly impossible to escape. Independent venues can't book Live Nation acts unless they use Ticketmaster for their tickets. Acts can't get into the large venues owned by Ticketmaster unless they sign up to have Live Nation book their tour. And when Ticketmaster buys a venue, it creams off the most successful acts, starving competing venues of blockbuster shows. They also illegally colluded with their vendors to jack up the price of concerts across the board:"
#Amazon#WorkersRights#Labor#EU#Monopolies#BigTech#Antitrust: "At the hearing in the European Parliament in January, where Amazon's chair remained empty, we got a glimpse into horrible working conditions through testimonies of employees.
One particular story sticks in our mind — of a worker who witnessed an accident and was later fired, to prevent any negative impact. There are reports about every break being closely monitored, about cameras in front of the bathroom door, about workers being treated like robots, slaves, numbers.
There must be no place for such exploitation in Europe. The multinational must respect European rules and values if it wants to do business and make profit in Europe. We must make Amazon pay decent wages and ensure workers' rights — to treat employees like humans, not robots.
With this mission in mind, the Socialists and Democrats are on Friday (12 April) organising a Europe-wide Amazon action day, coordinated by UNI Europa, the European Services Workers Union, to meet Amazon workers and UNI Europa affiliated trade unions in Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands — and discuss how to empower employees so they can stand up to Amazon's exploitation."
"When we blame "laziness" for ... #monopolies, we send the message that our friends have to choose between life's joys and comforts, and a fair economic system that doesn't corrupt our politics, screw over workers, and destroy small, local businesses. This isn't true. It's a lie that monopolists tell to justify their abuse."
Stop shaming individuals for systemic problems. I'm talking to YOU, fellow liberals.
#Capitalism#Globalization#Monopolies#Antitrust#Unions: "Here's a silver lining to global monopoly capitalism: it means we're all fighting the same enemy, who is using the same tactics everywhere. The same coordination tools that allow corporations to extend their tendrils to every corner of the Earth allows regulators and labor organizers to coordinate their resistance.
That's a lesson Mercedes is learning.
(...)
This is that unexpected benefit to globalism: the fact that Mercedes has extrusions into both the American and German political spheres means that both American and German workers can collaborate to bring it to heel.
The same is true for antitrust regulators. The multinational corporations that are in regulators' crosshairs in the US, the EU, the UK, Australia, Japan, South Korea and beyond use the same playbook in every country. That's doubly true of Big Tech companies, who literally run the same code – embodying the same illegal practices – on servers in every country."
#EU#Europe#Antitrust#Monopolies: "We are launching a new economic agenda for tackling monopoly power called "Rebalancing Europe", together with allies across Europe.
In June, millions of Europeans will be called upon to vote in elections that will determine the course and character of European democracy for years to come.
This manifesto sets out a roadmap for reimagining the mission, structure, and powers of the European Commission and European Parliament to restore freedom, opportunity, and prosperity to all its citizens by reining in and dispersing concentrated economic power.
For too long, the EU hesitated as a handful of powerful corporations gained strangleholds over the very heart of our economic life: our core communications and commercial technologies, essential goods, and critical supply chains. Hundreds of major corporate mergers went unchallenged, leading to serious and growing corporate concentration. This concentration has severely weakened Europe's power to provide for its citizens and defend their rights and freedoms." https://www.iccl.ie/news/new-manifesto-for-europe/
Thanks to my student Lino Sengkhamvilay (below) for today's story about how the citizens of Norman, OK rejected a 25-year deal with the local power company, leaving the city and utility w/out an operating agreement.
#EU#DMA#DSA#BigTech#SocialMedia#ContentModeration#Monopolies: "As the EU’s new flagship tech laws, the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, are coming into full application, Big Tech is working hard to shoot them down. As of today, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) becomes fully applicable, following its counterpart the Digital Services Act (DSA) on 17 February.
However, as the EU’s new tech laws are coming into full application, tech corporations like Apple, Amazon, Meta and TikTok are already undermining them at every turn. To subvert these new regulations, tech corporations have filed a number of lawsuits against the European Commission and attempted to weaken the rules with malicious compliance that protects their profits at the expense of their users.
Malicious compliance pretends to follow the letter of the law in such a way that ignores or otherwise sabotages the law’s intent. That’s why civil society organisations like EDRi are holding tech corporations to account for their actions and support the European Commission in fully utilising its oversight authority.
The DSA regulates how social media platforms deal with potentially illegal online content uploaded by their users, without unduly limiting people’s freedom of expression. The DMA contains powerful obligations and prohibitions to prevent those tech firms from monopolising key markets like smartphones, chat apps, app stores, and more." https://edri.org/our-work/delay-depress-destroy-how-tech-corporations-subvert-the-eus-new-digital-laws/
#SocialMedia#Facebook#Snapchat#Privacy#Encryption#Cybersecurity#Monopolies#Antitrust#BigTech: "In 2016, Facebook launched a secret project designed to intercept and decrypt the network traffic between people using Snapchat’s app and its servers. The goal was to understand users’ behavior and help Facebook compete with Snapchat, according to newly unsealed court documents. Facebook called this “Project Ghostbusters,” in a clear reference to Snapchat’s ghost-like logo.
On Tuesday, a federal court in California released new documents discovered as part of the class action lawsuit between consumers and Meta, Facebook’s parent company.
The newly released documents reveal how Meta tried to gain a competitive advantage over its competitors, including Snapchat and later Amazon and YouTube, by analyzing the network traffic of how its users were interacting with Meta’s competitors. Given these apps’ use of encryption, Facebook needed to develop special technology to get around it." https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/26/facebook-secret-project-snooped-snapchat-user-traffic/
#AI#EU#GenerativeAI#Mistral#Microsoft#BigTech#Monopolies#SiliconValley: "Max von Thun, Europe director at the Open Markets Institute, told Jacobin that the new partnership between Microsoft and Mistral AI is symptomatic of the “huge structural concentration that you see in the tech sector, which is not new, which has been around for a long time, but which has basically put the big tech companies in a position to essentially co-opt or neutralize any potential players in AI who might challenge them directly.”
Mistral has built its identity around its open-source model that can be modified and adapted by clients. What it stands to gain from its partnership with Microsoft is access to the latter’s enormous computing power and key position in market infrastructure.
“Here’s the catch: I can build an open-source model, but the challenge is to get it to the market and to the customer. As a company, that is what I care about,” Kris Shrishak, senior fellow at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, told Jacobin. “Distribution is a problem because they’re still a business. They need to make money. Microsoft gives them a pathway to that, by integrating it and offering it on their Azure marketplace." https://jacobin.com/2024/03/mistral-france-eu-monopoly-ai-regulation
#Amazon#FTC#Antitrust#BigTech#Monopolies: "[I]n amazon’s case, the FTC lawsuit suggests that the company’s financial disclosures effectively conceal a major source of profits: its third-party marketplace, which connects buyers with outside sellers. Third-party transactions represent about 60 percent of Amazon’s sales volume. The company acts as a middleman, matching vendors with shoppers and providing logistics to get the product from one to the other. The FTC alleges that, within this third-party market, Amazon imposes exorbitant fees on the sellers who rely on its site to reach customers, fees well in excess of what it costs Amazon to provide those services, leading to big profits. How big? That’s redacted.
The amount of profit that Amazon makes from third-party sellers, as opposed to AWS or some other division, might sound like a technical distinction, but it’s essential to the case against the company. The FTC alleges that Amazon’s low-price image is a mirage: According to the FTC, the company actually keeps prices higher than they would be in a competitive market—not just on Amazon but across the internet—squeezing consumers and small businesses in the process. Amazon famously lost billions of dollars in its early years and was barely in the black for many years after that."
I'm a very #leftist kinda lawyer in a very rightist kinda region.
In meeting with clients over the years, I note that they often like to talk about politics. I'm not entirely sure why. Some, perhaps do so to "feel out" whether I'm their type of attorney. Some maybe think lawyers have some deeper political insight due to their connection to the law. I don't know. I just know it happens with great regularity.
And being a leftist in an extremely rightist world, you can imagine my discomfort.
Fortunately, I've found a strategy that seems to allow me to bond with clients no matter how rightwhackadoodle they seem. Are you ready for it?
I talk to them about #billionaires. I tell them I think the problem in this country comes from billionaires shipping our industrial base to slave labor countries so they could dodge taxes.
I talk about how there is no difference between democrats and republicans because, at the end of the day, they are all #IvyLeague back-slapping buddies.