[AnthonyMouse]

>The government would go after Facebook as an entity when Zukerberg speaks out.

You honestly think the government is going to go after a multibillion dollar international corporation? Doing that is what gets the government into trouble, because the corporation has the resources to defend itself. And they're clearly not going to destroy Facebook and Google in any event -- can you imagine the public outrage, to say nothing of the economic damage?

Governments retain power through leverage. They don't actually have the power to destroy everyone, but they have the power to destroy one person, and the power to threaten everyone with the risk of being that one person. When the government is wrong, this relies on everyone being too afraid to do the right thing, and people not talking to each other and working together.

This is pretty basic stuff. If you stand up and no one else does, you die now. If no one stands up, you die later. If everyone stands up, you win. Which would you rather do?

[einhverfr]

More likely though they'd go after corporate officers for real or alleged criminal behavior (think of the "honest services fraud" charges against Jeff Skilling, reversed by the Supreme Court on the basis that the law was being stretched well beyond breaking point) and refer to the SEC for investigations....

The government has in the past gone after some extremely powerful corporations and when they had the endurance patience, and care, they have succeeded. We should remember that the government spent 50 years trying to destroy AT&T's monopoly on long distance telephone calls and eventually they succeeded.

[AnthonyMouse]

Again, corporate officers of large corporations generally have the resources to defend themselves. They can harass you if you're the only one, which is why everyone needs to do it.

>AT&T's monopoly

They spent 50 years trying to break them up and within 20 years after that they had pretty much bought each other back up again and continue to do so as time passes.

You should also note that the public hated AT&T because they were the prototypical example of an abusive monopolist. It's a different story when the reason for the campaign is that the corporation is going to bat for the public against government overreach.

There is also the matter of Citizens United -- it's extremely unfortunate when the government legitimately wants to attack oil companies or other evildoers, but it works just as well (if not more so) when the corporation is doing right and the government is wrong.

[einhverfr]

Actually I think the breakup of AT&T was one of those moments when policy changed because all of the businesses got scared. When you look at the long history there, and it is a long history, it was right after that, that the government backed off from being aggressively pro-competitive.

We see a shift thus under Reagan from pro-competition to pro-oligopoly which continues and accelerates under Clinton, Bush, and Obama. It is an indication that in class warfare the elite always win.

As for AT&T getting back together, they still don't own a record label, broadcast/entertainment media, the Japanese telephone system or the major manufacturers of phones in the US and abroad to an extent anywhere near what they used to..... People forget just how big Ma Bell was at its zenith.

[WalterBright]

The government create AT&T's monopoly on long distance.

[WalterBright]

s/create/created/