---
title: "No, Senator Hawley, We Aren’t Living in an ‘Age of Monopoly’"
summary: |-
  Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and others have argued we’re living in an “age of monopoly,” but that argument is not backed up by data.
date: "2021-06-04"
issues: ["Antitrust"]
authors: ["Robert D. Atkinson"]
content_type: "Op-Eds & Contributed Articles"
canonical_url: "https://itif.org/publications/2021/06/04/no-senator-hawley-we-arent-living-age-monopoly/"
---

# No, Senator Hawley, We Aren’t Living in an ‘Age of Monopoly’

Washington is nothing if not a vast assembly line for groupthink. It cranks out dubious claims faster than the chocolate assembly line in [that famous scene from I Love Lucy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkQ58I53mjk). A case in point was a recent morsel from Missouri’s Sen. Josh Hawley, who penned an [essay](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-big-tech-oligarchy-calls-out-for-trustbusters-11619816008) in the *Wall Street Journal* calling for a new generation of trustbusters to go after Big Tech in particular.

Hawley attempted to substantiate his populist argument that we are in an “age of monopoly” by repeating a series of faulty claims that have been passed around Washington so frequently that they have taken on almost mythic proportions. But as Rob Atkinson [writes in the ](https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/readers-opinion/guest-commentary/article251877158.html)*[Kansas City Star](https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/readers-opinion/guest-commentary/article251877158.html)*, those arguments are not supported by economic data.

---
*Source: Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF)*
*URL: https://itif.org/publications/2021/06/04/no-senator-hawley-we-arent-living-age-monopoly/*