‘Herculing’ & the Tech Monopolist’s Toolkit

Or ‘When Big Companies Steal Concepts from Small Companies, and How They Get Away with It’

A 5-minuter from Wonk Bridge

It was with the Sherman antitrust act of 1890 that the United States first sought to impose its anti-regal approach to governance upon big business. As its namesake Senator John Sherman said, “If we will not endure a king as a political power we should not endure a king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessaries of life.”

It did not represent the country’s first attempts at legal restraint over monopoly formation or monopolistic practice. Milder regulations and restrictions had existed in international common law since at least Darcy vs. Allin, but this was the first time a more direct approach to breaking up trusts was extended by a single state. In the age of robber barons and railroad trusts, such a direct approach was necessary.

And in our age of robber emperors and globe-straddling technology trusts, we seem to be in need of a direct approach again. Unfortunately, unlike indentured servitude, smallpox, and mutton chops, fashions for the sequestration of power have not largely remained in the past. In our Early Digital age we have a new monopoly class to be dealing with; and they’ve…