Obscure by design

Nature does not allow monopoly. Domination of one species ends up killing all species including the dominator.

Humans are yet to learn this.

In our short-term focus, we have concentrated corporate power into the hands of monopoly.

The monopolists become addicted to power. Mark Zuckerberg can decide, at his whim, who gets to thrive and who does not. Bayer/Monsanto can make a decision about crop rotation and seed sales that cripples farmers everywhere.

The story told is they are doing this for profit maximisation. The consumer — that is us — gets cheaper prices.

Until we do not. Until the monopoly seizes political power, becoming government in their own right. Not just through financial donations and owning politicians, but because they own everything, and at the sleight of their hands, rules change.

As Cory Doctorow writes, first they seize the consumer, trapping them into a structure that becomes a need, then they seize the small and larger businesses, offering them gains. And then they seize the small and larger businesses, dictating terms and price mechanisms that have become too important to the business to end.

The monopolist structure is obscure by design. Like a great magician, they want us to focus away from where the deception lies. Facebook — building connections. Google — search. Really?

All the while they become too big to fail, too important in our lives, policymakers and power players in their own right.

Citizens, on recognising the real game, have a chance to demand change, to insist on anti-monopoly policy as a standard.

If we do not, like all monopolies, the end will be the cancer dying with the host.

And we will begin again.

Photo Taken February 28th 2023