And there’s a final problem with the tendency towards monopoly. Bork doesn’t mention it much, but companies are not just important to consumers – they are also part of the wider functioning of society. Most obviously, they are supposed to pay tax. And for the first giants of the Exponential Age, our tax codes have been generous. The bulk of the assets for Exponential Age firms reside in intangibles, and intangibles are prone to sliding across borders – and easier to slip past the taxman. According to The Economist, in the years to 2020, the largest American tech firms paid a tax rate of around
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