1. Ok, I see I'm going to have to explain the Amazon minimum wage hike. There are two ways of protecting our liberties as individuals. First are rules to protect producers: patent, copyright, union, farm supports, etc. Second are rules to restrain capital: antitrust, finreg, etc.
2. The key is to block the ability of the financier to use the corporation and bank to control us. That means cutting off the ability to pour free capital from Wall Street into a segment to monopolize. That's why we had rules against predatory pricing.
3. It's why we used to force large companies - like railroads, airlines, AT&T, etc - to remain in a single business segment. This goes back to the 19th century. Jefferson saw it, the "aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government."
4. In the 1960s, industrial labor unionists and a series of historians and planners began to ignore this and talk about 'managerial corporatism' as if corporate management was inherently just progressive. Robber baron was old musty dusty stuff.
5. Basically the left began to think that all they needed was two specific forms of labor protection - unions for industrial corporations and government regulations - and everything else, including the restraints on capital, was irrelevant. It was top-down pity politics.
6. In 1975, union leaders in New York City, for instance, talked a big game, but they thought Walter Wriston of Citibank was a good guy. He was cool. Progressive. This is as he was gutting financial rules meant to constrain robber barons.
7. It was the left, not the right, that set free chain stores in the 1970s. It was the left, based on Nader consumer politics, that attacked the rules against predatory pricing and a series of banking rules. All in the name of 'the consumer.' Restraints on capital are musty.
8. Walmart, and now Amazon, is the natural result. It's hard to convey just how much oppression Amazon is engaged in. They steal from small businesses, merchants, big businesses, the government, local governments. It is a private government system designed to rule.
9. This report by @stacyfmitchell gets the scope of some of what Bezos is doing. Basically the restraints on capital are gone. Totally gone. This is unprecedented in American history. ilsr.org/wp-content/upl…
10. The response is this. Years ago, Barry Lynn began recognizing that the power of Walmart, and then Amazon, came from its ability to exploit predatory pricing and wield market power against suppliers. @linamkhan did this remarkable work on Amazon. yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-a…
11. There is a vibrant debate now over Amazon's conflicts of interest and its exploitation of many different stakeholders. A few weeks ago, @SenWarren called for Amazon to be broken up into its marketplace and its merchant segments. This is the real threat.
12. Then @SenSanders made the short-sighted case that it is Bezos's pay scale for minimum wage workers that is the problem. He called Bezos a potential 'Henry Ford' and asked McDonald's, Walmart, etc to raise wages. This is the failed lefty view of benevolent masters.
13. Bezos raised wages for minimum wage workers for a series of reasons. But mostly because he's happy to be able to steal from the entire economy and get the support of lefties in doing so. Bezos throwing pennies at workers while stealing from others isn't a victory. It's sad.
14. If we want to govern ourselves, we have to stop thinking like serfs and asking masters for better treatment. We have to say no masters. That means labor protections in all its forms, but it also means putting back restraints on capital that existed for hundreds of years.
15. I'll just say that Bernie's partner on the Bezos bill in the House, @RoKhanna, actually did more than Bernie. When few in Congress would say anything about the Amazon-Whole Foods merger, Ro spoke out. So did @davidcicilline. That's the leverage point. theatlantic.com/technology/arc…
16. Just to take one example. Wages for book authors have collapsed since the Kindle introduction. Raising the minimum wage for warehouse workers is not a 'step forward' for authors whose livelihood is gone or radically reduced bc of Amazon's market power. 
17. And the tens of thousands of small business owners who have been crushed by Amazon's unfair subsidization of free shipping - they had incomes too. Paying a higher wage for warehouse workers isn't a 'step forward' for them.
