Cory Doctorow's next book: Chokepoint Capitalism
So disappointing from a writer who I used to admire.<p>There&#x27;s always room for renegotiating the allocation of profits, especially when new technologies unsettle established norms. But Doctorow&#x27;s arguments depends on an idiosyncratic view of monopoly power and a romanticized vision of the struggle between artists and publishers&#x2F;distributors, whose contributions to creative economies are often illegible to most observers. Tweet twenty-six reads:<p>&gt; These monopolies have captured every sector of the economy - from beer and pro-wrestling to health insurance and finance:<p>&gt; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.openmarketsinstitute.org&#x2F;learn&#x2F;monopoly-by-the-numbers" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.openmarketsinstitute.org&#x2F;learn&#x2F;monopoly-by-the-n...</a><p>Beer? There&#x27;s no way to conceive of monopoly power that means anything and also includes beer, at least in the USA. I started to do some research, but the idea that beer is imperiled by consolidation is so contrary to my every day experience that I feel trolled.<p>Nonetheless, I decided to check the link to the &quot;Anti-Monopoly Basics&quot; page at the &quot;Open Markets Institute&quot; website, which immediately moves from anti-monopoly rhetoric to a more defensible &quot;industries are getting more consolidated&quot; position: &quot;There are many indicators that economic concentration is increasing&quot;, &quot;Nearly every marketplace in America is vastly more consolidated than a generation ago&quot;, before pivoting back to the original idea with their list of &quot;monopolies&quot;, which is mostly a list of industries with dominant but not seriously monopolistic players. Worse, their list zooms in and out of the map, sometimes considering international competitors and other times ignoring them to make dominant American firms seem more threatening than they are. Some examples:<p>- Defense Contractors: &quot;Since 1993, consolidation has reduced the number of large defense firms from 107 to five.&quot; <i>Five large firms sounds like a reasonably competitive market. Obviously collusion is possible, but that&#x27;s not alleged here, merely that five competing firms amounts to a monopoly.</i><p>- Food Service: &quot;In 2015, the FTC and Justice Department successfully blocked a proposed merger of Sysco and U.S. Foods, the two biggest companies in the food services industry. Since then, the two companies have continued to consolidate nonetheless, as Sysco acquired North Star Seafood and U.S. foods acquired Cara Donna Provision Co.&quot; <i>Hard to know what threat this poses when there&#x27;s no denominator, no sense of scale.</i><p>- Cowboy Boots: &quot;Four of the biggest brands – Justin Boots, Tony Lama, Nocona, and Chippewa – are all owned by Berkshire Hathaway.&quot; <i>No denominator. Four brands out of how many? What percentage of the market do they take up? WAIT A MINUTE, don&#x27;t cowboy boots compete against other types of footwear? Are &quot;mystery novel monopolists&quot; a thing too?</i><p>- Appliances: &quot;Whirlpool’s takeover of Maytag in 2006 gave it control of 50 to 80 percent of U.S. sales of washing machines, dryers, and dishwashers and a very strong position in refrigerators. Maytag also controls the Jenn-Air, Amana, Magic Chef, Admiral, and KitchenAid brands and holds a dominant position over supply of Sears Kenmore products.&quot; <i>First of all, look at those error bars (&quot;50 to 80 percent&quot;!). But more importantly, here they are zooming in on the USA market, when this is simply a global market.</i><p>- Internet Searches: &quot;Google controls 64 percent of all desktop searches and 94 percent of all global and mobile tablet searches.&quot; <i>Ok, I&#x27;ll give them this one.</i><p>If this organization reflects Doctorow&#x27;s evidentiary standards, I&#x27;m not interested.