In this episode of New Ideal Live, philosophers Onkar Ghate and Aaron Smith analyze the recent congressional hearings in which the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google were interrogated for over five hours by the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on antitrust.

Among other issues, Ghate and Smith discuss:

The ways in which the hearings amounted to a show trialThe disastrous false equation of economic power with political powerThe intellectual roots of the push to reorient and reinvigorate antitrust lawsThe sense in which the hearings represent a move in the direction of fascism

Mentioned in the discussion is Ayn Rand’s lecture “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business” (also available in essay form in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal), the entry on “antitrust laws” on the ARI Campus Lexicon, and Lina M. Khan’s influential Yale Law Review article “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox.”

This podcast was recorded on August 12, 2020. Watch or listen to the discussion below. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts,  Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived episodes here.

Podcast audio: