I have certain, sensible libertarian tendencies. I am just enough interested in history to know that the government has frequently been as harmful as it is good for many people. Not just marginalized groups like Blacks or the Irish or a small business owner who can’t figure out how to install solar panels on her own roof. But also large swaths of people harmed by, say, corporate interests with unlimited spending power in campaigns.
Libertarians would tell you that in an ideal free market no one company could have such an outsized impact on your life. This, however, is not entirely true because the railroads and, today, telecoms and big tech companies prove otherwise. I think it’s fair to say that Apple, for one, has had a pretty free hand in doing whatever it wants in the United States. Microsoft has, too, despite the DOJ Antitrust suit back in the 90s, but even then, that fizzled into almost nothing meaningful to the company.
All this to say, that in a world where our federal government and states are taking varying roles in pulling back or covering up on regulation, there is a third “government by corporation” I think about a lot.
Again, libertarians would tell you that this is no real major harm. That eventually these companies will fall away. This is hard for me to swallow insofar as “eventually” can mean “a generation or two”. We’re 30 years into complete monopolistic control over the web from Google, 20 years into iPhone/Android duopoly dominance, and 40+ years of Microsoft.
In pursuit of relentless growth we have this absurd economic situation in the “free” market. The global free market is free only insofar as corporations are mostly free to do whatever is necessary to lower labor costs, sell high, buy cheap, and make cheap. To Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, and other low-wage laborers, are they better off now that they’re in a factory on cement floors all day instead of at home on a dirt floor? Maybe? That’s a real hard thing to quantify, but people certainly try by saying “Look at our GDP!” and “Look at their incomes!” as if money earned is the sole measure of a life well lived.
It’s also hard to say this was entirely their choice. Certainly in China, but even in the United States as people are more or less forced into work they’d otherwise never consider or find fulfilling. It’s like if I opened the door to my chicken coop, shut it behind them, and told them they’re “free” to compete against the foxes and enjoy all their newfound freedom.
It is no surprise that the free market is freest to those with the most money. Wal-Mart certainly has more freedom in a town than a small hardware store.
I think about this a lot lately as the role of skill and taste evolves in my line of work. To be honest, I’ve never felt like I have a huge ego but it’s hard for me to look at my inbox most days and not feel disrespected in some way. Culturally, no one would go into a restaurant and say, “Hey, this is great. Can you have the chef come out and teach me how to do this so I can just do it myself?” Neither would you go into a restaurant, look at a menu, and say, “Actually, I just had ChatGPT make a custom recipe that looks okay to me. Have the chef make this.” I don’t view myself all that different from a chef, but I get asked this a lot and I find it spectacularly rude.
The role of my work has evolved because I am now governed by corporations. I am governed in the apps I can use, the software I rely on, and the need to carry all this stuff. It is not acceptable for someone to say, “Well, you can just not use a phone” or “You can just not use Adobe apps”. I can’t even unlock doors at some places without a phone. Nothing exists that rivals InDesign. This is, apparently, economic efficiency after Adobe has, with the government’s blessing, gobbled up all the good competition. (I am aware Affinity has Publisher, but it can’t even handle mail merges in many of my use cases.) This is like telling a carpenter, “Well, you don’t have to use hammers” if all the hammer companies consolidated into one with a monthly subscription.
