Conservatives Are Wrong to Call for Government ‘Trust Busting’: New At Reason

One bedrock principle of American conservatism has been its commitment to a freer marketplace. As Ronald Reagan noted, “The societies that have achieved the most spectacular, broad-based progress are neither the most tightly controlled, nor the biggest in size, nor the wealthiest in natural resources.” What unites them, he added, is their belief “in the magic of the marketplace.” In an about face, conservatives these days are increasingly likely to view markets as a dangerous form of dark magic that must have more government control.

For instance, Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor and prominent right-of-center blogger, last week penned a USA Today column arguing that President Donald Trump ought to follow the lead of trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt and use his power to bust Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google. TR was a Republican, but he was a progressive, which makes him an odd hero for conservatives. Busting might sound benign, but it means government regulation and control.

Reynolds describes these “new tech monsters” as monopolies and quotes TR complaining that “when aggregated wealth demands what is unfair, its immense power can be met only by the still greater power of the people as a whole.” This kind of rhetoric usually emanates from the political Left, which finds every inequity in the capitalistic system to be unfair. Its solution—and it always amounts to the same basic solution—is to empower the government (working on behalf of “the people as a whole”) to tax, regulate and even commandeer private companies.

Nevertheless, many populist Trump supporters likely are nodding their heads in agreement to this proposal. In fact, blustering about the tech industry has become something of a talking point on the right. The reasoning has little to do with principles and more to do with expediency. They don’t like that these big, mostly Bay Area firms seem to be run by progressives. They argue that such companies have used their market power to “censor” conservative opinions. These critics offer some compelling examples of troubling behavior, even if they need a lesson in word usage. Censorship is when government limits speech. And these firms are not monopolies. They are successful private businesses, but others are free to compete with them, writes Steven Greenhut.

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