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Jason Randles's avatar

Interesting and thought-provoking... thank you.

I am curious about the empirical evidence that monopolies and price gouging didn't drive inflation. We've all seen the charts that show corporate profits at record highs since 2020 and saw CEOs bragging about pricing power and using inflation as cover. It doesn't seem like a stretch to connect those dots, or are we just splitting hairs by saying "driving" vs "contributing" to inflation? Of course multiple factors caused inflation, but to suggest that there is no evidence that greedflation played a role seems disingenuous at best.

And how solid is the evidence that calling out corporate power didn't resonate with voters? For starters, the Democratic party never takes a stand on this. Kamala mentioned corporate greed and price gouging for maybe 2 weeks, and then for some reason, that messaging completely disappeared. If they would have explained monopoly power and cartels and the consequences of that concentration of power, it would poll better.

But Dems don't talk about this stuff because these corporations and their owners fund their campaigns. If I may... 2+2=4. Is it a coincidence that Bernie and AOC, two of the few Dems who do call out how the game is rigged, are the most popular Dems? And when it comes to empirical evidence, it's so easy nowadays to cherry pick data and present it in such a way to support a conclusion. Not everybody can engage in philosophical or intellectual debate, but that doesn't mean the majority of the population can't see through the bullshit. Sure, corporate power isn't the only driver of inequality, but it's most definitely at the top of the list.

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Inside Outrance's avatar

A few things, the first being that I think the work done by Matt Stoller on his BIG newsletter and the writings of Cory Doctorow (both linked below) do a good job demonstrating that market concentration is a bipartisan issue that regular voters care about, the second is that the political scientist, Henry Farrell, has done a good job (politely) highlighting some other instances where Noah Smith just fundamentally misunderstands how power works in our existing system of political economy and exhibits certain other blind spots (linked below), and third it's been empirically proven that those with extreme wealth have an outsized influence on the policy decisions made by our legislators which Smith doesn't seem to acknowledge muchl (also linked).

Matt Stoller (policy piece for the American Economics Liberty Foundation where he serves (served?) as director): https://www.economicliberties.us/our-work/democratizing-markets-how-the-biden-administration-can-advance-an-antitrust-and-competition-policy-agenda-for-working-people-independent-businesses-and-resilient-communities/

Matt Stoller BIG newsletter: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/

Cory Doctorow's blog posts tagged with 'market concentration: https://pluralistic.net/tag/market-concentration/

Dr. Henry Farrell politely pointing out some of Noah Smith's blind spots:

https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/dr-panglosss-panopticon

https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/power-a-primer-for-perplexed-economists

Distortion effects of wealth on policy decisions:

https://home.watson.brown.edu/news/2021-11-03/dark-side-extreme-wealth

I'm not trying to denigrate Noah Smith, even if I disagree with him quite frequently (perhaps more than others), but these are all relevant topics that lend credence to your take over his.

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