Summary of Rebecca Giblin & Cory Doctorow's Chokepoint Capitalism

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 The culture market is a winner-takes-all system, in which a handful of people take almost all the rewards. This has always been the case, but now there is less and less to share.

#2 The reason creative workers are receiving a declining share of the wealth generated by their work is the same reason all workers are receiving a smaller share—we have structured society to make rich people richer at everyone else’s expense.

#3 Capitalism is supposed to be based on free markets, but markets have a natural tendency toward monopoly, destructive extraction, and rent-seeking. To keep those tendencies in check, governments have been forced to engage in vigilant stewardship of markets.

#4 The culture market is a winner-takes-all system in which a handful of people take almost all the rewards. This has always been the case, but now there is less and less to share.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Oct 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798350039351

IRB Media

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Insights on Rebecca Giblin & Cory Doctorow's Chokepoint Capitalism

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Culture has been captured by a handful of conglomerates. These companies generate enormous wealth, but little of it is shared with the people who actually make it.

#2

The reason creative workers are receiving a smaller share of the wealth generated by their work is because we have structured society to make rich people richer at the expense of everyone else. This has been done through a radical theory of antitrust, driven by jurist and far-right cult-of-personality favorite Robert Bork.

#3

According to the Chicago School, monopoly, destructive extraction, and rent-seeking are natural tendencies of markets, and so they require vigilant stewardship to ensure they remain sufficiently marketlike.

#4

The decrease in competition is not an isolated issue but rather a systemic feature of America’s political economy. Corporations have come to rely on it to increase their profits, and they use many different forms of it to keep potential competitors out.

#5

Amazon is the master of moats, which it uses to cement its customers and suppliers. It attributes its success to its flywheel, a virtuous cycle that makes the business bigger, better, and faster. However, this cycle is anything but virtuous.

#6

Amazon’s strategy is to lock in users and suppliers and make its markets hostile to new entrants. This is called chokepoint capitalism, and it’s been used by companies to monopolize or monopsonize their markets.

#7

Monopsony, or the power of a single buyer, can be just as dangerous as monopoly. It can drive the price of goods below what they would be in a competitive market, which can ultimately be bad for consumers.

#8

There is a growing coalition of interests opposed to concentrated corporate power, and they are making the case that we should move away from the consumer welfare standard and return instead to antitrust’s roots, which were established to protect broader public interest goals.

#9

Antitrust’s failures are ultimately why we’ve ended up with so much concentrated corporate power, but the law should be used to promote the public interest, not subvert it.

#10

The culture industries are a great example of how corporations create the conditions that will secure them a disproportionate share of the value of other people’s labor. Creators earn little from the culture they produce not because of platforms, but because their supply chains are colonized by powerful corporations who co-opt most of its value.

#11

Creative workers should also be on our radar because they are the