[rendall]

The essay is right about the behavior but wrong about the explanation.

It correctly observes that once companies become dominant, they stop acting like normal competitors. Instead of just building better products, they lobby regulators, buy potential rivals, and shape markets to protect their position. This pattern is real, widespread, and shows up in every industry, not just tech. That alone should hint that ideology isn’t the cause.

Where the essay goes wrong is treating this as executive confusion or moral contradiction. Executives at dominant firms aren’t confused or especially immoral. At scale, durable dominance and real competition are incompatible. Public companies are punished for slowing down, executive pay is tied to growth and stock price, and losing dominance can end careers even if the company survives. Regulation becomes something to manage or reshape. With weak enforcement, rule-bending is the rational move.

This doesn’t need a moral or psychological explanation. It follows directly from incentives, scale, and governance gaps.

Coherent narrative might help. Framing the problem as bad beliefs (as this essay does), bad people, or “capitalism in general” misses the point and leads to confused demands. Policymakers are pressured by the public to punish individuals or signal virtue which are distractions from effectively funding enforcement, closing loopholes, and limiting power at scale. Meanwhile, clear, well-funded lobbying focuses their attention on their needs.

Clearer public narratives won’t fix the problem by themselves, but they’re a minimum first step. Without a shared understanding of what is wrong and how to fix it, meaningful pressure for reform never even starts.

[ryandvm]

Citizens United. It's always Citizens United.

The insane conclusion that amoral and mostly unaccountable conglomerations have the right to direct US legislation and policy without limit is why we are in this mess. Until we sentence an entire Board of Directors to a life sentence in prison, I think I will remain unconvinced that "corporations are people".

[rendall]

Outrage is fast. It’s legible. It doesn’t require grappling with incentives, enforcement mechanisms, or tradeoffs. But outrage has a cost: It replaces diagnosis with blame. It trains the public to expect villains, not mechanisms. It produces demands that can’t be implemented. It gives cover for inaction, because nothing concrete is being asked. From the perspective of power, it’s almost ideal. Lobbyists show up with clear goals and specific language. The public shows up angry, divided, and incoherent. Guess who wins.

Proposing life in prison for people who are doing lawful things is a non-starter.