Net Neutrality, The Telecoms Monopolies, And Stronger Antitrust Enforcement
A former FCC Commissioner was just on MSNBC with Ali Velshi and unwittingly laid out the path that Democrats should take toward restoring net neutrality when they regain enough political power to do so.
When confronted by Velshi about what would stop providers from locking out competitors or prevent popular companies like Facebook from paying huge sums for a “fast” internet thereby locking out small, entrepreneurial startup competitors, the former commissioner insisted that the activity Velshi described would still be illegal even after the repeal of net neutrality. But the governing law he cited was the Clayton and Sherman antitrust laws.
In fact, using and enforcing the existing antitrust laws is the perfect way to not only guarantee net neutrality but also break the cable, broadband, and Google/Facebook/Amazon monopolies. That should involve splitting off the advertising functions of Facebook and Google from the existing companies; breaking up the vertical monopoly at Amazon perhaps by separating the platform from the company’s other services; forcing the cable and broadband companies to actually lease out their networks to competitors; and subsidizing rural and municipal broadband access.
Antitrust may be a hazy concept to most Americans today but almost every American sees and feels the power of the monopolies and oligopolies that dominate are current economy, especially in the telecoms industry. As I’ve written before, antitrust provides enormous potential benefits for just a single policy. It could lead to more jobs and the higher wages as competition for workers increases, reduce the barriers the competition as well as the political power of the monopolies, and perhaps even lower income inequality. The challenge for Democrats is making that connection between the policy and the benefits to a voting public that is desperately seeking real economic answers.
