The blog does a great job describing the overall arc of corporate capture of government regulatory agencies and trade policies. As other people here have said, it could have included more concrete examples - doubling the size of the article with more examples would be good. Still, well written.
I have been totally captured by the Apple ecosystem and I am not always happy about that. I am more mellow about Google because I pay for the Google services that I use and love (YouTube with no advertisements and YouTube Music, GCP, Colab). I feel that my relationship with Google is transactional under terms I like well enough. I don’t use Google Search.
Off topic, but this blog is on ProtonMail’s domain and I personally think ProtonMail+Calendar+Cloud Storage should get some sort of “most improved product” award. I have been a paying Proton customer for a very long time, but for the last 6 years I have mostly used either Gmail, Apple mail, or FastMail as my primary email with my personal domain. In the last 3 or 4 months I have gone back to using ProtonMail as my primary email provider, and for me it is now 100% “good enough.” Enough small improvements to satisfy me.
I would like to talk more about digital independence and freedom, so I am going to go try to find a Reddit community for this.
Even when paying, Google scares me a bit for anything important. Just last night I switched ISPs, and Google seems to have re-enabled 2FA via God-knows-what Android device and doesn't have a way to disable it (even after logging back in through a network where they trust me more). It's the kick in the pants I needed to finally de-Google.
You make a good point. Even being careful to always have a printout Google's onetime login codes, we hear enough stories of people being locked out of their accounts. I do a few things to mitigate this possibility: 1. about 3 times a year I do a Google Takeout data dump. 2. I forward my Gmail (which I don't use much) to my main email. 3. I love YouTube Music, especially music with videos, but I have purchased the MP3s for my 200 favorite songs and I will always have those. 4. If YouTube 'went away' both my wife and I would be very unhappy, but we would get back a lot of free time.
Suggesting that so-called "corporate capture" is a new or recent phenomenon is incredibly ahistorical. This sort of nonsense could only persist in a nation that knows absolutely nothing of its own history.
I agree it doesn't do a great job explaining the issue.
You can find a better summary in [1]:
> The TPP and USMCA have a broadly worded “nondiscrimination” requirement that could be interpreted as restricting member countries from enacting policy that, while neutral on its face, effectively has a greater impact on firms from a particular country.
> This risk is not hypothetical. We’ve already seen Apple and Google wield this argument in the context of South Korea’s 2021 law targeting anticompetitive app store policies, on the grounds that it has a discriminatory effect because of its disparate impact on U.S. firms.
So basically large tech firms are trying to use trade agreements that are supposed to equalize market access to instead argue that laws aimed at their behavior are illegal under the terms of the trade agreement.
Also:
> Expansive and absolute-secrecy guarantees for source code and algorithms are another key feature of the industry-backed USMCA/TPP approach. These provisions are justified as preventing the forced transfer of software trade secrets as a condition for market access (a concern animated primarily by Chinese actions in the past)
> several organizations have pointed out that the USMCA definition of “algorithm” is broad enough to restrict the sharing of even mere descriptions of algorithms with regulators, a key part of algorithmic transparency proposals..
Not sure how this would even work. To my knowledge trade deals can only be disputed by signing countries, not corporations. I don't think a bubble gum company in US can sue Singapore for the bubble gum ban, for example.
The deals can only be signed by countries, but the trade deal treaties have local legal weight or are implemented them using local laws which can then be used in any legal dispute.
That's literally the point of trade deals: the purpose is to reduce trade barriers for companies. In broad terms that is a good thing, but there are definitely issues in some cases.
The article is not very good but multinationals have been significantly abusing free-trade agreements for decades.
These agreements are negotiated in secret with very little public oversight and parliaments usually can only say yes or no to the whole thing. If it’s the EU sometimes national parliaments have no say.
Companies lobby to put clauses mandating arbitration or classifying some laws as distortion of competition. Here the article focus on laws impacting big tech but the same could be said for basically any sector.
> These agreements are negotiated in secret with very little public oversight and parliaments usually can only say yes or no to the whole thing.
The are negotiated in secret because if they were negotiated in the open it would pretty much impossible to ever actually get anything the could be ratified.
Over the course of negotiation generally each party needs to make concessions in some areas in order to get what they want in other areas. From draft to draft what they concede and what they get will change.
If that was all in the open by the time the proposed final treaty is up for ratification every group that thinks that the final draft is less beneficial or more harmful to them than an earlier draft would be opposed. Even if the final is better for them than not having a treaty it often won't matter...they had more in a draft, and will want more negotiations to get that back.
Sounds like a lot of deals between Democrats and Republicans. Two deeply undemocratic parties who rig their own primary elections make deals in private to get votes for their shared corporate agenda. Seems legit.
The republican primaries are not rigged. The previous elites of the party didn't want Trump in 2016. Republican voters, however, did.
Americans really love to twist themselves in knots to excuse their own laziness with respect to politics. "Oh look at how dysfunctional the government is, but there's nothing we can do about it."
2016 pretty clearly made it clear that at the end of the day, its the people of the US who hold power in their country.
I don’t think your take is wrong, but using Trump (who became President despite losing the popular vote in 2016) as an example of how citizens hold the power is an amusing way to express that sentiment.
If trade deals were passed like legislation in a parliament or Congress, with time in committee and lots of room for individual legislators to add their input, there would be so much more corporate abuse it's not even funny. This would give a chance for every favored sector, major employer in a powerful legislator's district, company that the government favors at the moment etc. to add in clauses favoring them. Doing an up-or-down or vote actually greatly reduces pork.
>If it’s the EU sometimes national parliaments have no say
Yes, that is what the European Union is, by deliberate design. The individual countries voluntarily agreed to give up that power- if they didn't, they'd have been pushed around by China and the Trump administration. The EU is strength in size as a negotiating bloc, as a top 3 global economy. (Also, famously, countries can just leave the EU if they don't feel like it's a good deal)
> If trade deals were passed like legislation in a parliament or Congress, with time in committee and lots of room for individual legislators to add their input, there would be so much more corporate abuse it's not even funny. This would give a chance for every favored sector, major employer in a powerful legislator's district, company that the government favors at the moment etc. to add in clauses favoring them. Doing an up-or-down or vote actually greatly reduces pork.
The idea that there is less corporate interest meedling because everyting is done in secret and people can't see nor control what's happening is so ridiculous I am at loss to how you could come to this conclusion. Considering your disdain for actual democracy, I'm not surprised you like the EU in its current form.
>The idea that there is less corporate interest meedling because everyting is done in secret and people can't see nor control what's happening is so ridiculous I am at loss to how you could come to this conclusion.
It's not hard to think of reasons why doing it in secret would have less corporate meddling, eg. done in secret -> less pressure for negotiators to feel beholden to their supporters (eg. representatives to their donors). That said, there are plenty of reasons why doing it in secret is a bad idea (eg. it's undemocratic), but those are independent issues.
But it gets subjected to an up-or-down vote, right? How is that different from any other law? Normal legislation gets hammered out in committees all the time, in every parliament in every democracy in the world. It's not like committee hearings are personally audio and video recorded for you
> If trade deals were passed like legislation in a parliament or Congress, with time in committee and lots of room for individual legislators to add their input
You're conflating transparency with the process. The deals could be negotiated same as now, but without the secrecy. Though I have to say I find the idea that transparency would increase corruption rather novel.
I mean, I think the word 'corruption' is being over-used here. But discussions about say tax rates or agricultural subsidies follow the normal legislative process. Do you feel like these issues are being handled optimally now? It just gives a huge attack surface for lobbyists and rent-seekers to complain and whine and get their way.
If the trade deal went through the 'normal' legislative process, every rep with a bit of leverage would hold it hostage for the pet industry or major employer in their district. "I won't sign off on this bill until we have a special carveout for Local Industry!" etc. etc.
I'll admit that I don't know a whole lot about global supply chains for tech mastodons, but seeing how this isn't going to be an European thing, wouldn't this lead to companies like Apple being forced to create a trans pacific and a European iPhone? If so, then I wonder how the benefit realization of this whole thing pans out compared to simply complying with legislation demanding more openness. Even if that made sense, or some of these tech giants simply decided to cut their losses and say good buy to the Euro sector, how long do they really expect these trade deals to last when they try to side step the US democracy as hinted by:
> With IPEF, even Congress has been shut out of negotiations, which limits accountability and transparency.
Maybe I'm alone in thinking this, but I doubt that it'll work out well in the long term. The EU has been very strong on enforcing consumer rights, but a lot of the benefits we get here in the EU seem to catch on in the US eventually, and then what will these deals really accomplish? Are those 5-15 years of monopoly really worth all the fighting? And perhaps more importantly, is it really worth more than being a "first mover" on building a more consumer friendly platform?
>Even if that made sense, or some of these tech giants simply decided to cut their losses and say good buy to the Euro sector
I think it would be short-sighted decision. Currently European tech scene isn't great, because it is hard to compete with US companies awash of VC money or who are highly profitable and entrenched in the EU market. But if those giants would voluntarily clear positions, competition would have arise and could threaten the giants in the long run - i.e. by offering privacy thanks to coming from EU, where GDPR non-compliance is very expensive.
This is similar situation to why USA has such huge military presence in Europe in general. Sure it is expensive and Europeans are sometimes ungrateful, but if they would have left, then in the long run EU would likely got its own unified army and become serious geopolitical competitor on level of China, even if ideologically aligned with USA.
US presence in Europe is something done to serve US purposes. Let's not pretend it sets up military bases abroad out of the goodness of their hearts, to protect the world or any such bullshit.
"Crazy Ivan" can not even wage a respectable war against one of its former puppet states. As tragic as it is for the Ukrainians, let's not overestimate the capabilities of Russia to be a true menace to the rest of Europe.
I hate to break it to you, but Ukraine, even before the outbreak of full-scale war, had significantly higher effective military capacity than Germany.
Ukraine has been at war since 2014 and has hundreds of thousands of experienced reserves. Germany has an air force that can barely fly, and a few dozen tanks that mostly don't work.
They are nominally NATO, but it's only on paper and as a staging ground for other NATO countries — German armed forces are almost entirely deadweight.
> Not sure if you are aware how small most European countries are
The thing is, are you aware that most European countries are also aware of this?
What do you think that they have done in response? Some kind of "unity" maybe ?
There's good reason why the EU is regarded as powerful, when Denmark isn't. There's good reason why Estonia joined, and Ukraine would like to.
It's not just small countries banding together though. Poland, 38m people was also keen to join.
> If the EU is a mutal-defense agreement why are all these EU members trying to also join NATO?
Because mutual defense agreements and other joint security agreements aren’t mutually exclusive, and NATO has an integrated military command and more nuclear powers as members.
I don't think Finland has high confidence that the binding agreement will save them.
If you look at the polling for if Finland should join Nato there is a huge spike after 2022 [1]. Even Sweden which has a buffer between it and Russia also had a increase in polls [2]. Not that anybody does this poll, but you won't see a spike in if say Canada should join the EU. The point being, these countries do not trust that the EU will protect them.
Such agreements only force-project the illusion of a larger, unified entity as opposition to anybody who might act against them. It is a deterrent at best.
It has yet to be witnessed what hilarity ensues when any of them simply refuse to answer the call.
I mean they're getting (some of) what they pay for. Europe benefits vastly from international trade being pretty safe, something the US makes a massively outside contribution to. Your underlying premise seems to be that "if the US isn't fully altruistic then no one else is benefitting", which seems to set the US's moral bar through the ceiling, and everyone else's below the floor. I think you need to have a more equal expectation of all sides.
If China provided the same protection instead, would your opinion be the same?
If the burden of keeping military presence in Europe is so big, US can always leave. No one is forcing them to project their power beyond their own damn borders.
So yeah, I'm not "grateful", nor I see why I should be. I see only a superpower acting in their own geopolitical interests, doing what is better for itself, and no one else.
I have to imagine that faced with the choice of US bases scattered across Europe vs Chinese bases, most Europeans would choose Pax Americana. It's probable that under Pax Sinica, you wouldn't even be able to have this conversation.
Europe's gratitude toward the American military-industrial complex is not required, the US gets plenty out of the deal. However the only realistic alternative for Europeans is to expand their own, and boy does that come with a lot of downsides.
I was just using a very blatant absurd hypothesis to make it clear that nothing about whatever military agreements in between European countries and the US is something to be taken with gratitude (as implied in the original post I was replying to).
As someone living in Europe, I am grateful for the EU, and I wish the constituent countries to be more integrated over time.
I see no reason to be grateful for the US for its military presence here. They do it for their own benefit, and should definitely leave if the cost to them is too high for whatever benefit it gets. For Europe it's just convenient.
Are you implying that the US does not subsidize its existence by taking wealth from outside countries? That it does not project it's behavior and morality on others?
It had to be on HN for me to read bullshit this absurd.
> If China provided the same protection instead, would your opinion be the same?
Of course.
> So yeah, I'm not "grateful", nor I see why I should be. I see only a superpower acting in their own geopolitical interests, doing what is better for itself, and no one else.
As an American who opposes military adventurism, I think those bases are a net negative to America because they facilitate such wars. Protecting Europe from Soviet/Russian aggression is well and good, but insofar as those bases facilitated the "war on terror" they have been a disaster for American society. I wish American politicians would not find it so convienent to casually wage war in other hemispheres.
Both Europe and the USA benefit. Imagine a world where the USA wasn't present since 1945. The EU would have needed a lot more weapons, if only because of the USSR.
Part of these weapons would be nuclear. Most EU states today are perfectly capable of developing them, the knowledge was already mostly available before WW2. Nobody did, because most of EU history consists of having war with a neighbour, and this scenario with all kinds of A-bombs floating around made every country very nervous.
So some understanding was built that nobody who hadn't already done so would develop nukes, and the USA guaranteed they would not be necessary. It's a small miracle things worked out so well as they did.
> So some understanding was built that nobody who hadn't already done so would develop nukes, and the USA guaranteed they would not be necessary. It's a small miracle things worked out so well as they did.
You're reading more in there than I wrote. Europeans should not be grateful to the USA. A way of doing things is in use today, making the world a slightly better place for both Europe and the USA, maybe even for the rest of the world. Everybody might be grateful for that, but not towards any specific party. We all gain.
Some European countries have nukes anyway, I think it's officially limited to the UK and France. But Germany does not, which would have been unthinkable between world wars. Belgium, my own country, has access to Uranium via Congo, has all know-how as we (oopsie) did teach Iran the necessary tricks, has good enough industry to do the job, and has nuclear reactors. All the elements are there. In fact, it's 99% sure USA nukes are in the country, and if we really wanted, we should be technologically capable of stealing them and remaking them into a usable if less powerfull nuke. The only reason Belgium hasn't any nukes is because we don't want them and do our utmost best not to have them.
Now Belgium is one of the smallest and least powerful countries. EU and NATO live here in Brussels because most other countries would become too powerful. If we can build nukes, just about any other European country should be able to do the trick. Meanwhile, the only way the USA can keep Iran and North Korea from having the bomb is because the nations are badly functioning, and there aren't much of them. If 20+ reasonably rich and open European country decided to develop nukes at them same time, there is no way stopping all of them.
BUT If that happens, the very next war would be very very ugly, and we all know it. Part of the reason for the existence of the EU is giving us a way to project global power, but another part is that after WW2, European countries had to learn to live together, or we'd make the whole continent uninhabitable. We simply can't afford a WW3, and neither can the USA.
There's an entire world outside USA and EU and for EU it's way cheaper (and simpler) to have the US dealing with that - an approach having its plusses and minuses of course, like any compromise.
It's just self-interest on both sides, Europe doesn't have to be grateful any more than the US has to be grateful to the Europeans for allowing bases on their territory.
I can't wait until Europe pays for it's own defense. I love that Europeans kept empires as long as it was profitable and then just ran away and left America to deal with the issues/conflict borders they created and then have the nerve to criticize the USAs trying to keep the world going, yet Europeans don't even have the morals to ban their corporations from using bribes/kickbacks to get overseas contracts (instead they get to deduct that expense from their taxes).
If it's such an inconvenience for the US to extend their military to beyond their borders, why do they keep doing so?
They should just stop doing that if it's such a trouble.
Of course, we know they won't, because it serves US purposes. You are just too dense to either see or admit that. Keep pretending that the US is some sort of self-sacrificing entity, just to protect some ungrateful Europeans Across the pond.
We do it because we have had the money and military to do so but I think you will see this go in the other direction over the next 20 years. It is hard to see how the money situation does anything but get worse and worse.
We are also pretty much at the point of missing military recruitment numbers by 20-25% every year now.
The truth is, all companies want to be above the law.
In reality once a company reaches a certain size and can afford a large team of good overpaid lawyers and lobbyists, they become above the law (at least in the US).
All these companies want to do is discard their lobbyists and lawyers.
> With IPEF, even Congress has been shut out of negotiations, which limits accountability and transparency. Both Democratic(new window) and Republican(new window) lawmakers have spoken out to oppose the US Trade Representative’s usurpation of congressional authority to craft domestic tech policy.
So trade-agreements which overrides national laws are being developed without any representatives from the actual government which is asked to enact this into law?
Come on. At least pretend you’re not trying to sidestep democracy and democratic processes entirely.
This is embarrassingly transparent, and I can’t see actions like this do anything but further the conspiracy(?)-theories surrounding World Economic Forum.
Here's how the US Constitution works: the Executive is solely responsible for negotiating and signing international treaties and trade deals with no input from Congress or the Judiciary. Once signed, a treaty or trade deal is a piece of paper with no value.
Once a trade deal has been made by the Executive, Congress needs to introduce and pass legislation to implement the deal. They may choose to implement it as is, or more likely make all kinds of changes and implement something completely different. Once Congress has passed an implementation bill into law, the Executive develops all the rules and regulations associated with it and actually implements it, including enforcement bodies and committees to determine if the treaty or trade deal has been violated.
Then it's up to the Judicial branch to determine if the laws passed by Congress are valid or not, in terms of other laws and precedents, when asked.
So don't go off on some internet-based conspiracy rant that regular constitutional operations are trying to subvert Your Freedoms. Read opinion pieces on the internet in the context of knowledge and actual fact and in the spirit of click draws and eyeball sales.
Executive agreements (agreements made in the absence of the Senate) are not mentioned in the Constitution, but they are considered binding U.S. international agreements under Supreme Court case law and as a matter of historical practice.
There's a very real problem that "make binding agreement with another country" and "total independence of the legislature" are incompatible. The most obvious one is external debt - see what happened when Argentina tried to legislate theirs away.
If your country agrees not to make a law that has a certain effect, and then makes that law, it's breached international law. And for countries other than America that has negative consequences imposed by America.
What is the proper way to handle a future legislature saying "who cares what our predecessors ratified? The populace changed its mind. Isn't democracy grand?"
> What is the proper way to handle a future legislature
by force (ala an invasion), or by not ever dealing with said country again.
A populous wanting to change their mind is not a reason to invalidate a treaty unilaterally - this sort of behaviour should be frowned upon. The process should be to renegotiate a new treaty that all parties to the treaty agree to.
Then it's a behavior that can only be gotten away with if said populace also has a stockpile of W80s and other H-bombs (and is flooded with guns and wannabe domestic terrorists)
If you define the democratic principals in the constitution, and define them as fundamental, then the constitutional court would consider any lesser law as unconstitutional.
It does not matter, it is the constitutional court who decides if the law is compatible with the constitution, not the senate. E.g. if in the constitution it is written that judges must be elected with a popular vote, the senate cannot adopt a law saying that it is a president's prerogative. The fact that both senate and president are democratically elected does not matter, because their legitimacy is given by the constitution and therefore they cannot override it.
So, the constitution is a protection, however, you should define well what a "democratic principal" is and how to recognize if something is not part of it. The best way is to assert a list of unalienable rights like right of property, access to information, and right of privacy, such that no law could be adopted which goes against them. The government being democratic is only a secondary defense, and not very reliable should add.
Curiously there was vehement argument at the time of the Bill of Rights, that enshrining a fixed list of rights might mean that no other rights could exist. Which is actually pretty close to what happened.
E.g. the right to freedom of speech is generally not enforced except as the government itself will not enact laws to restrict it. Individuals, corporations are still free to censure other individuals. So we don't have freedom of speech in that sense. Thanks, Bill of Rights!
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you but the bill of rights is specific to actions taken by the government. Of course individuals and corporations are free to censure individuals on their platforms as long as they are not doing so at the direction of the government.
A kid can't waive the constitution in their parent's face when they barge into their room without knocking, even though they have a right to privacy and protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
Your comment has two separate arguments, if I'm not missing something:
1. rights do not exist outside of the constitution
2. freedom of speech is not enough as defined now.*
Regarding 1, you should propose where else would rights be defined and defended. Currently, the issue could be mitigated, if the constitution is opened for additions and closed for deletions. Not absolutely, but sufficiently close to discourage abuse.
Regarding freedom of speech, the issue is not the right itself, but the fact that matters of public debate happen on a few private properties. The right of property and personal liberty means that you cannot force someone to do your work for free, so if you want free public space, this space should be either provided by the government or it should be a shared public responsibility a.k.a distributed social network.
> Dominant tech companies use their economic power to win favorable concessions in trade deals. Only appointed trade advisers(new window) can participate in the confidential negotiations, and these advisers disproportionately represent Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and their trade associations.
They also disproportionately represent the US economy.
I see many complaints that american tech companies are banned in china, while TikTok is allowed in the US. Maybe this is the kind of thing that this trade deal is supposed to address? Seems reasonable, if so. Would love to learn more about this, but this an extremely one-sided article.
> Both Democratic(new window) and Republican(new window) lawmakers have spoken out to oppose the US Trade Representative’s usurpation of congressional authority to craft domestic tech policy.
So they can complain about it but wont pass legislation to set it right? Seems fishy
I have been totally captured by the Apple ecosystem and I am not always happy about that. I am more mellow about Google because I pay for the Google services that I use and love (YouTube with no advertisements and YouTube Music, GCP, Colab). I feel that my relationship with Google is transactional under terms I like well enough. I don’t use Google Search.
Off topic, but this blog is on ProtonMail’s domain and I personally think ProtonMail+Calendar+Cloud Storage should get some sort of “most improved product” award. I have been a paying Proton customer for a very long time, but for the last 6 years I have mostly used either Gmail, Apple mail, or FastMail as my primary email with my personal domain. In the last 3 or 4 months I have gone back to using ProtonMail as my primary email provider, and for me it is now 100% “good enough.” Enough small improvements to satisfy me.
I would like to talk more about digital independence and freedom, so I am going to go try to find a Reddit community for this.