This is the Libertarian Podcast from the Hoover Institution.

Today we're discussing Amazon and its monopoly status.

I'm your host, Tom Church, and I'm joined by the Libertarian Professor Richard Epstein.

Richard is the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow here at the Hoover Institution.

He's the Lawrence A Tis Professor of Law at NYU, and he's also a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago.

Richard, I have to know.

Are you is excited at the prospect of breaking Amazon up as FTC Commissioner

Lena Khan?

Well, A, I mean, it's not even sure that she's in favor of breaking the darn thing up.

I know, I know.

So essentially, what there is a little bit of, shall we say simulation on this particular case which is very difficult to read one of the things that striking is the remedial section that she put in on this case said we want injunctive relief and damages and other equitable relief as the court sees fit.

The general rules on this even for this situation is if you emerge a guidelines are aggressive and you're trying to stop a case.

The basic presumption is that you've got a reason to be good shot at it because you don't

have to disentangle a unitary operation and figure out how you divide it.

But if you're taking the other side on this thing, then it turns out you have a very different

kind of problem. The breakup at this point is infinitely more complicated because you have to know exactly how you can make the two or more entities each self-sufficient and you have to be able to be confident enough that the only way that they

will be so they can be self-sufficient without having any kind of cooperative arrangements with

the other and so that what you do is you break the companies up and then have long-term contracts as a close substitute.

I don't think that that is not a card.

I think the other thing that struck me when I actually went back and read it with some degree of care.

Ultimately what she made was a practice argument,

that is certain practices that are engaged in by the company

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