Post
This is particularly galling because Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly, explicitly declared that these mergers were undertaken *to reduce competition*, which is the only circumstance in which pro-monopoly economists and lawyers say that mergers should be blocked.
Let me take a step back here. During the Reagan years, a new economic orthodoxy took hold, a weird combination of economic theory and conspiracy theory that held that:
2/
a) It was bad economic policy to try and prevent monopolization, since monopolies are "efficient" and arise because companies are so totally amazing that we all voluntarily buy their products and pay for their services and;
b) The anti-monopoly laws on the books are actually *pro*-monopoly laws, and if you look at them *just right*, you'll find that what Congress *really* intended was for monopolies to be nurtured and protected:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/20/we-should-not-endure-a-king/
3/
The one exception these monsters of history were willing to make to their pro-monopoly posture was this: if a corporation undertakes a merger because they are *seeking* a monopoly, then the government should step in and stop them. This is a great standard to come up with if what you really want to do is *nothing*, because how can you know why a company *truly* wants to buy another company? Who can ever claim to know what is in another person's heart?
4/
This is a great wheeze if you want to allow as many monopolies as possible, unless the guy who's trying to get that monopoly is Mark Zuckerberg, because Zuck is a man who has never had a criminal intention he did not immediately put to writing and email to someone else.
5/
This is the guy who put *in writing* the immortal words, "It is better to buy than to compete," and "what we’re really buying is time," and who described his plans to clone a competitor's features as intended to get there "before anyone can get close to their scale again":
6/
Basically, Zuck is the guy who works until 2:30 every night, and then, before turning in, sends some key executive a fully discoverable, immortally backed-up digital message that reads, "Hey Bob, you know that guy we were thinking about killing? Well, I've decided we should do it. And for avoidance of doubt, it's 100% a murder, and right now, at this moment, I am premeditating it."
7/
And despite this wealth of evidence as to Zuckerberg's intention at the time, US regulators at the FTC and EU regulators at the Commission both waved through those mergers, as well as many other before and since. Because it turns out that in the pro-monopoly world, there are *no* bright lines, no mergers so nakedly corrupt that they should be prevented.
8/
come over, warm up. coffee?
