In this episode of New Ideal Live, philosophers Onkar Ghate and Aaron Smith analyze the recent congressional hearings in which the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google were interrogated for over five hours by the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on antitrust.
Among other issues, Ghate and Smith discuss:
The ways in which the hearings amounted to a show trial
The disastrous false equation of economic power with political power
The intellectual roots of the push to reorient and reinvigorate antitrust laws
The sense in which the hearings represent a move in the direction of fascism
Mentioned in the discussion are:
Ayn Rand’s lecture “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business” [ Ссылка ]
(also available in essay form in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal) [ Ссылка ]
the entry on “antitrust laws” on the ARI Campus Lexicon [ Ссылка ]
and Lina M. Khan’s influential Yale Law Review article “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox.” [ Ссылка ]
