For months, conservatives have been increasing their calls to use the antitrust laws against Big Tech. These calls are filled with contradictions, such as the claim that Facebook, Twitter, and other tech companies are endangering free speech by blocking conservative content. Another contradiction is expressed by Will Chamberlain, publisher of Human Events. Chamberlain writes that
in the case of these tech giants, antitrust enforcement is law enforcement, and one of the few remaining pathways to a robust free market in digital technology.
Chamberlain fails to understand that the operative word in free market is free–the absence of coercion. He proposes to violate freedom in the name of promoting freedom.
Despite his claim of seeking a “robust free market in digital technology,” Chamberlain’s real concern is saving the conservative movement.
If things continue as they are, with the Big Tech companies wielding monopoly power to silence conservatives, it could ultimately destroy our entire political movement. Today’s conservative movement has become a bastion for free expression and ideological experimentation; we zealously guard the marketplace of ideas as much as we do free enterprise.
In other words, since Big Tech won’t support ideas that it disagrees with, Chamberlain and other conservatives want to force them to do so. This, they want us to believe, is guarding the marketplace of ideas.
In a truly free market, individuals can produce and trade values–whether material or intellectual–as they deem best. In a truly free market, all actions are voluntary.
Conservatives want to remove the voluntary and replace it with the coercive. They want to force Big Tech to engage in actions that they would not voluntarily choose.
Imagine the uproar if Chamberlain were forced to publish the drivel put out by some Progressives. He might claim, and rightly so, that he should not be forced to support ideas that he disagrees with. But this is what he and his ilk want to do to Big Tech.
Whether it is the marketplace of ideas or the marketplace of material values, individuals have a moral right to act as they judge best, no matter who or how many may disagree. If Chamberlain and conservatives truly value a free market in ideas, then they must respect and defend the freedom of Big Tech to support the ideas of their choosing.