Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant

Google is like a reasonable run utility. MS with Office became something like that and did the job too well with XP. Legacy media companies today hate Google, FB or even Craigslist taking away their messaging for dollars relevance. We have been consolidating wood behind legacy family arrows for decades. Google serves global markets efficiently. Here is Nobel Prize winner Robert Shiller explaining pump-dump wagon circling local American economic problems. Younger people forget how NYC and SF attracted educated talent pools when they were relatively CHEAP. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/real-estate-pri...

Market competition had greatly reduced Standard Oil's monopoly by the time the government broke it up...

I think Google's lobbying overall is the result of being punished early on by regulatory capture of competitors. Look at the threats:

* Microsoft funded number backroom whisper campaigns in DC (http://www.businessinsider.com/what-an-anti-google-whisper-c...) * Microsoft and Oracle funded their own Astroturf lobbying groups and think tanks, to tie up the company in lawsuits and investigations (e.g. FairSearch) * Oracle funding numerous shills like Florian Mueller * Carriers and Cable Companies lobbying to demolish net-neutrality * Bills like SOPA.

Google used to spend very little on lobbying, and as a result Verizon, Microsoft, Oracle, Comcast, had the undivided attention of Congress.

Now to be fair, Microsoft was attacked by its competitors with similar campaigns in the 80s and 90s. It just goes to show you that corporate lobbying can play off people's populist tendencies and weaponize them against competitors.

So when you ask, "How could Google give to ALEC", a question Googlers themselves ask, or contribute to conservatives who deny client science, you have to consider that Congress has the industry by the balls. They can threaten regulation or punishment, and then hold fundraisers on pledges to block said regulation. It's a shakedown: "nice business you have there, shame if I'd have to regulate it. By the way, I'm having a fundraising dinner next week" Why would Silicon Valley serve on Trump's advisory councils when many of the members revile Trump on a personal level? Because there's a huge risk making the executive branch an enemy.

>It may be weird that no one is arguing that (maybe it's just no one you're listening to, or being allowed to listen to, though?), but it's not weird that it's not libertarians. The notion that some people shouldn't be allowed to form voluntary associations with others because they got "too large" is anti-libertarian.

Libertarianism as a moral structure is a belief in economic freedom for it's own ends. Like you said that really describes ancaps better. 99% of the time that's not what people mean when they talk about libertarianism, they mean libertarianism as an economic structure. That's still essentially a belief structure, but it's the very specific belief that economic freedom is the best way to create economic efficiency. The anti-authoritarianism comes from the fact that the government has special privileges (derived from enforced unionization of citizens) and is overwhelmingly powerful (derived from police power + spending comprising 21% of GDP). ANY large corporation will have that power- including Walmart (if its revenue was 10x higher), Apple (20x) and google (50x). Even a small corporation can, in a company town. Any libertarian should be against those things just on the principle that the rights available to any corporation should be equal. Having more money shouldn't "unlock" rights any more than having very little (welfare, progressive taxation, etc).

I think the primary reason this is ignored is just ignorance of the methods and power wielded. Anarcho-capitalism is significantly less popular than libertarianism exactly because the moral beliefs are significantly less palatable. Very few people think that the poor should starve- I believe that most libertarians do honestly think that in an ideal world, livable work would be available for anybody with anything to contribute.

>However, because we must stand on principles instead of feels, the relevant principle here is that we have no right to interfere with others' affairs simply because they've chosen to pool their resources into free association, massive or otherwise (assuming they are not interfering with others' liberties, and I don't think there's a genuine argument now that they are).

That's... not admissible in any libertarian philosophy I'm aware of. That definition admits governments in their entirety, or close to.

>All hope is not lost, however: there is reason to believe that these monopolies derive much of their monopolistic power through the state (e.g., via regulatory capture) and thus by reducing the power of the state we will actually achieve the desired benefit (breaking up monopolies) without infringing on anyone's liberties.

That statement is in opposition to history (monopolies were larger when there was less government involvement), economic theory (noncompetitive practices are econ 101 and happen without any government), evidence (increasing amounts of money pretty clearly give a disproportionate amount of power) and common sense.

Honestly I'm very confused by this whole sub-thread because I can't tell if kobeya was talking about my comment or ex3xu's. In my opinion ex3xu's comment was completely off-topic from the original article, and that's what prompted me to respond to him.