The previous post explored 4 reasons why anti-trust legislation failed to reign in monopolies.
In this post, we look at how monopolies use their lobbying dollars to get their way. For every $1 they spend on lobbying, they make $760. That’s a 76,000% Return on Investment (ROI).
Lobbying is hugely profitable for companies. According to a study by the Sunlight Foundation cited in this CNBC piece:
“200 of America’s most politically active corporations spent a combined $5.8 billion on federal lobbying and campaign contributions… those same corporations got: $4.4 trillion in federal business and support…”
What’s the Return on Investment (ROI) for lobbying?
The study found that “for every dollar spent on influencing politics, the nation’s most politically active corporations received $760 from the government”. That’s a 76,000% ROI.
Consequently, it should be no surprise that Big Tech “[f]aced with the growing possibility of antitrust actions and legislation to curb their power, four of the biggest technology companies are amassing an army of lobbyists." The NYT article goes on to say:
“The four companies spent a combined $55 million on lobbying last year, doubling their combined spending of $27.4 million in 2016, and some are spending at a higher rate so far this year [2019], according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks lobbying and political contributions. That puts them on a par with long-established lobbying powerhouses like the defense, automobile and banking industries.”
Furthermore, the elected officials are utterly dependent on monopolies for re-election. Google was a critical funders of Obama in the 2012 election. According to WSJ, Google visited Obama “230 times, or an average of roughly once a week” from 2008 to 2015.
So is it a surprise that Google was not charged with anti-trust violations?
As reported in The Intercept: the "FTC commissioners took the unusual step of overriding their staff’s recommendation to sue, and voted to settle the case instead – the White House official even sought Google’s talking points in the matter.”
Democratic governance is a "pay to play" affair. As summarized by an ex-lobbyist:
"Supreme Court rulings that have repeatedly told us money is an absolutely protected form of speech. A string of cases like Citizens United and others has opened the barn door to unlimited “dark money” campaign spending… Those with the most money have the largest voices. Those with the least are rarely part of the process. That makes the legality of the practice of lobbying less relevant because it’s an uneven playing field.”
Anti-trust legislation was meant to act as a check against elite power. However, such legislation needs the support of the 1% to pass. As noted in the infamous Princeton/Northwestern study:
"When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organised interests, they generally lose…even when fairly large majorities of Americans favour policy change, they generally do not get it.”
Consequently, democracy is ultimately irrelevant when it comes to practical matters of day-to-day life. It’s unfair how Google crushed foundem.com. But who has time to fight this? This injustice is probably one of the lower ones on the scale.
Furthermore, the resources that the rich bring to the battle is staggering.
For example, “grand total across all the donor groups was $68 million to the groups that were filing amicus briefs” within a case that was related to Consumer Financial Protection Board (CFPB).
What’s an amicus brief?
The parties can hire experts to present these briefs even though they are not involved in the legal proceedings. As Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse explains, "these legal groups, many of which ask to lose below so they can get quickly to the Court to get their business done there. And then they turn up in a chorus, an orchestrated chorus of amici.” Why do they want to get to the Supreme Court so quickly? So, they can kill the legislation.
Assuming Whitehouse referred to the Seila Law v. CFPB case, the elites simply overwhelm the Supreme Court with $68 million worth of testimony to defang the CFPB regulatory agency. More broadly, they can use this approach to get the Supreme Court system to rip up any legislation they don't like.
How does Islam deal with these issues?
There are four key ways that Islam would address this.
Firstly, the rich can’t influence legislation. When Abu Bakr (ra) became the ruler (i.e. the Khaleefah), some tried to get out of the asset tax, claiming that this was only collectible by the Prophet Muhammad (saw). That is, they would continue to pray but no longer pay zakat. Abu Bakr (ra) didn't accept this "lobbying" and fought them instead, stating: "if they were to refuse me a rope of camel which they used to pay the Messenger of Allah, I will fight with them over the refusal of it” [Abu Dawud]. It’s hard to imagine a ruler fighting the rich to pay their fair share. But that’s the history of Islam.
Secondly, Islam is not a ball of wax that can be reshaped at will. The jurists' goal (i.e. scholars) in Islam is to find the ruling that will please the Creator, Allah (swt). People incorrectly limit the issue of interpretation to what is commonly classified as “religion." However, any legislative system requires jurists to interpret the law – including Capitalism. In the US, for example, there is a debate about what the comma after the word “State” means in the Second Amendment when it comes to enacting gun laws. And so the NRA spends $250 million per year to get the interpretation that favours their interests.
Islam, in contrast, forces the rulers to deal with text. For example, Umar bin al-Khattab (ra) wanted to limit the amount of money given to the bride (the mahr) to make it easier for people to get married. However, he was forced to rescind his position when it was pointed out that the Quran (4:20) allows a woman to receive a Qintara or "great amount." Upon the incident in some narrations, he said: “The woman is right, and the man is wrong.”
Thirdly, it is an obligation on all to be an activist. All must stand up and call to what is right and speak out against what is wrong. Citizens can't just let things go because "you have better things to do." As previously mentioned, the woman corrected Umar (ra) because it is an obligation to account the ruler.
Allah (swt) revealed:
“You are the best Ummah to have been raised up for mankind, you command the Good (Ma’roof), and you forbid the Evil (Munkar)” [TMQ 3:110]
Prophet Muhammad (saw) said:
“The master of martyrs is Hamzah Ibn Abdul Mutallib and a man who stands before the unjust ruler Imaam and then commands him and forbids him and then he (the Imaam) kills him (for that)”
The scholar Abu Hanifah (rh) was not satisfied with the leadership of Al-Mansour in general. His mother told him one day when he was in prison, “O Nu’man, this knowledge did not benefit you, except in getting beaten and imprisoned, and this is enough for you to abandon it.” He answered her, “O mother, if I desired the world I would have achieved that, but I wanted Allah (swt) to know that I safeguarded the knowledge I was given and did not submit myself with it to doom." The scholar Ahmad bin Hanbal (rh) was urged by his uncle, when he was in prison, to refrain from publicly opposing the opinion held by Al-Mutassim. He replied: “If the scholars do not speak the truth, and thus the people ignore it, so how then will the truth ever be known?”. Both Abu Hanifa (rh) and Ahmad bin Hanbal's stances resulted in establishing two of the four major Sunni schools of thought. People, till today, rely on their scholarship – centuries after speaking truth to power.
Fourthly, Islam uses a non-adversarial approach to the law. In Islamic Courts, the judge is not merely a referee that allows the rich to bludgeon the poor to death. Instead, they must play an active role in determining the truth. He will sift through the case's reality and judge it using the laws derived from the Quran and Sunnah. So, he will take care to understand the points of view of all the disputing parties. Capitalism, in contrast, allows the two parties to duke it out and then who wins? The one with the most capital.
The court's role in the economic system is a much larger issue that will be explored in a future post in sha Allah.