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> The most interesting part of Taiclet’s response was, like Hicks’s answer, the ideological component. Taiclet suggested that antitrust enforcers look to “compe
by chordalkeyboard 6y ago
> The most interesting part of Taiclet’s response was, like Hicks’s answer, the ideological component. Taiclet suggested that antitrust enforcers look to “competitors, which are China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea for example, comparing our defense industrial base capabilities to those of the peer group.” In other words, while Hicks argued that our democratic competitive systems make us stronger, Lockheed Martin’s CEO said just the opposite. We should, in his view, mimic authoritarian societies in the way we run our commerce.
Ideology in this case is whatever answers the inconvenient questions.
- webmaven 6y agoI'm not sure that interpreting Taiclet's response as "we need to mimic authoritarian regimes" is quite right. It seems to me that what he's really saying is "as long as we have more competition than our authoritarian opponents, we're just fine". Of course, there is very little practical difference between tacking towards more consolidation as a result of explicit mimicry vs. as a result of shifting the Overton Window except perhaps in rhetorical terms of the stated preferred end state ("duopolies are more competitive than monopolies, right?")