i think left-liberals sometimes have a hard time seeing what's going on here because "capitalism" has come be a substitute word for all social ills. but american media consolidation is a nascent planned economy.

February 27, 2026 - 03:49 UTC

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monopoly means industry doesn't have to make things people like or want, but on top of that:

1) the economy is shit
2) the economics of the industry are shit
3) the monopoly is very clearly aligned with a corrupt government that loves paying cronies
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in the modern economy, the user is not the customer
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I agree to a point, the problem with monopolies is that the service degrades over time and if the monopoly is in an elastic good and entertainment and news is very elastic people will stop consuming the good real fast. Especially when the enshitification begins
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this sounds like the soviet union of all things.
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Have you read about "enshitification" by Cory Doctorow?

Basically, monopolies are bad. And with tech / internet, monopolies can own entire markets, including the entire supply chain. And squeeze consumers, advertisers, and the few independent biz that are left. No-one is left out of the squeeze!
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everyone is busy hating capitalism while they go do a mercantilism
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4) the industry is a major factor in how people attain government power in the first place
5) the lines between vendor, government buyer, and government regulator keep blurring
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Agree with much of this thread, but I think at base it's still capitalism driving many of these pathologies. Capitalist logics incentivize the drive toward consolidation and monopoly power, even if they produce different kinds of capture. More here in case interested: lpeproject.org/blog/the-american-media-polycrisis-cascading-layers-of-capture/
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Same in the UK
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Thank you
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Capitalism isn’t generic for ‘everyone tries to make money start a biz or invent something’. It’s greed & pursuit of profit run by biz “owners” (who own everything-and also run/structure govt. unions, a living wage affordable non extortionist rent/homes/HC access =power;not just $.We’re Russia now.
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Yeah this
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bsky.app/profile/scumbelievable.bsky.social/post/3mfsezrbjh22c
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This has been happening with dozens of other sectors of the economy before it got to media. Supermarkets, health care conglomerates, insurance conglomerates. It's very difficult to open your own, original business because so many corporate franchises have covered every niche.
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🛎️🛎️🛎️
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Yes, the rule set of capitalism curbs or eliminates the centrifugal tendencies of markets and therefore tends towards a planned economy for the benefit of a handful of oligarchs. That's why states require anti-monopoly interventions.
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"With the aid of the State power, the monopolies screw up by all possible means the degree of exploitation of the working class, the peasantry and broad strata of the intelligentsia... the bourgeois State... is in the grip of the monopolies." -Lenin
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It's a circle jerk. Media corps want permission to consolidate, so they fluff power (& donate $$ to campaigns). Those in power want favorable coverage (& more campaign $$), so they cater to big media.
There used to be rules to make the circle a bit more diverse, but the 96 law proved their undoing.
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where we're going, this economy won't need pesky "consumers" anymore
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I think there has been a sub-current on the left that correctly identifies large corporations as planned economies. Elizabeth Anderson's book "Private Government" makes basically this argument, and is pretty good.
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Really? Just seems like bog standard capitalist monopolism. I suppose you can argue that monopolists plan things to their benefit, but it’s not what most economists would call a planned economy.
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I think the planned economy aspect is that you have a monopoly that is beholden to the whims of the executive
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I once heard someone say the easiest path to communism is to totally deregulate, wait for everything to consolidate to just two or three corporations, then nationalize them.
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No, that won't work.

That would open the door to even more competition and fewer monopolies and oligopolies
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📌
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