What should we do about Google, Facebook, and Amazon? So far, however, relatively few answers have come from the socialist left. At least in the United States, the cutting edge of the platform regulation conversation is dominated by liberal antitrust advocates, perhaps best represented by the Open Markets Institute.

They have some good ideas, and they’re serious about confronting corporate power. But they come from the Brandeisian reform tradition. Their horizon is a less consolidated capitalism: more competitive markets, smaller firms, and widely dispersed property ownership.

For those of us with our eye on a different horizon, one beyond capitalism, this approach isn’t particularly satisfying. There are elements of the antitrust toolkit that can be very constructively applied to the task of reducing the power of Big Tech and restoring a degree of democratic control over our digital infrastructures. But the antitrusters want to make markets work better. By contrast, a left tech policy should aim to make markets control less of our lives — to make them less central to our survival and flourishing.