Lina Khan was appointed to the Federal Trade Commision by Biden at the suggestion of Elizabeth Warren. Warren was influential in the appointment of many progressive directors and administrators in federal agencies broadly related to consumer and worker protections.
Khan is currently in the crosshairs of billionaire Democratic mega donor Reid Hoffman. Hoffman recently contributed $10 million to the Harris campaign and is doing a fund raising thing with tech mega donors to support the campaign. At the same time Hoffman asked for Lina Khan’s head, figuratively speaking.
VP Harris hasn’t commented. Politicians have to deal with this all the time, people give them money and expect something in return, that doesn’t mean they get what they want.
A lot of this has to do with monopolies. As a law student Khan wrote a paper with worldwide influence about how we think of monopolies. Since the 80s we’ve been following the Robert Bork model of thinking. Monopolies are ok if they bring down the prices consumers pay. Khan’s idea is that monopolies that allow one company to manipulate everything to do with a service or product give too much power to one company and stifle competition, eventually leading to many bad outcomes one of which is maybe higher prices.
Monopolies can also stifle competition, and that has led to some unusual bipartisany support for Khan. I’ll bet you’d never guess who said,
“The fundamental question to me is, how do we build a competitive marketplace that is pro-innovation, pro-competition, that allows consumers to have the right choices and isn’t just so obsessed on pricing power within the market that it sort of ignores all the other things that really matter.
JD Vance the current bete noire of the presidential campaign. Vance famously has his own tech supporters especially his old employer Theil and other crypto deregulation advocates.
Free link to the NYT Deal book article.
Behind the Democrats’ Fight Over Lina Khan’s Future
The tech companies seeking less regulation are pretty much all of them. I’m more interested in the consumer and employee efforts by the FTC. Anti compete contracts, monopolizing the sale of drugs via the Pharmacy Benefit Mangers, etc.
Me? I’m all in. For Khan, for anyone supported by Elizabeth Warren. Warren is the most knowledgeable person about all issues economic and how the affect us little people in a generation. We could stand to have another few decades of people like her in the senate. We could also stand to have regulators like the FTC chairwoman, Lina Khan is extremely intelligent and fearless. The captains of industry have run roughshod over America for too long. A good part of a policeman’s job is deterrent. Part of Lina Khan’s appeal is that she keeps people honest just by being there.