… was the scorching title of an event held at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London on 25 March. For some idea of what it was like, here is the opening plenary:
and here is the closing plenary:
with Nick Shaxson’s words on the upside of competition.
See also this blog summary of the message, with its downloadable copy of the booklet Monopoly capitalism — what is it and how do we fight it? For the workshops in between those plenary sessions — well, I made a transcribble of my notes from those I attended, and here it is. But the booklet will give you a better idea.
Workshop: Make big tech small again
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Parminder Jeet Singh
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Garfield Hylton
Garfield Hylton is a union activist at Amazon’s Coventry warehouse.
How make narrative clear?
How break up Amazon?
What about end of Amazon?
How break up layers?
Parminder Jeet Singh: No other way to deal w. problem. Break-up is rqd. How? Cf. India’s local networks in 5 cities. Platform companies should be registered as a different kind of company.
Uber drivers can withdraw their data from Uber.
Google in politics: one US pres candidate said if Google can do it govt shd not do it.
Garfield Hylton: Amazon will sack an IT worker as costlier than warehouse workers.
Amazon’s increasing automation hugely reduces the workforce.
Parminder Jeet Singh: Amazon workers create 2 kinds of value: shipping of things, and data.
How break up Twitter &c?
How rethink advertising rules?
How consider break-up of Amazon web sces?
Garfield Hylton: GMB sees public contacts as affording leverage.
Amazon not actually that good with IT.
Everything in Amazon is temporary.
Parminder Jeet Singh: Not necessarily a good thing. Cloud firms should not do other things besides cloud.
Workshop: Dismantling big pharma’s money machine
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Nick Dearden
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Julia Kosgei
Q: What about China?
Julia Kosgei supports open science.
Nick Dearden: vaxxes made by Chinese TNCs played a contradictory role. Chin at first distributed in Global South rather than vaxx their own people.
China at first less keen on IP — then more so.
Don’t see them as angels.
What we must now do is push model of mRNA hub — genuinely transformative.
What campaign priorities?
Isn’t competition a problem rather than a solution?
How far from R&D distribution is wide enough for you to ignore northern power?
Nick Dearden: Priority of mRNA. This reverse engineering is a good thing.
Priority of getting Labour to a gd policy position — such as it had in 2019!
Role of regulation and public ownership is important. Competition needs these [in order?] to be useful.
SA govt shocked to find SA treated as a poor country.
Julia Kosgei pushes a Sept event
Wd Southern find of North-relevant drug be a game-changer?
BRICS — how far is that a solution?
What blocks NIH marketing itself?
Julia Kosgei: 2021 scientists sought treatment for [?]. But it was blocked.
Nick Dearden: Small firms get taken over. Pandemic changed the scaleback of producction by drug companies (not the part of the operation that was the most profitable. China is not 100% anti-colonial.
Has the anti-vaxx row muddied the waters?
What about BRICS+?
What impact of power moving east?
Julia Kosgei was hard to follow.
Nick Dearden: Govts don’t have much of a clue. Nick excited to see US change — & hopes other govts will have to respond. Hope not based on govts’ gd intentions.
Anti-vaxx sentiment is a problem, yes. Pharma industry is the biggest problem in anti-vaxx.
