194 – Cultural Capture by Chokepoint Capitalism (ft. Rebecca Giblin, Cory Doctorow)
This Machine Kills
00:00
Monopoly Profits - Consumer Welfare Antitrust
If you're not allowed to raise prices on consumers in obvious ways, the one way that you can realize monopoly profits is by screwing over your suppliers. When Walmart sends all of its production to China and they start building suicide nets around the factories, that's a win under consumer welfare. And so when you apply that to creative arts markets, you immediately see why you have labels who are squeezing their workers. We just had this thing where Warner bought discovery and then just canceled a bunch of shows for the tax write offs. That's fine under traditional theories of antitrust. But now we're starting to move beyond consumer welfareism.
Transcript
Play full episode
