Democrats have turned on Big Tech. At least that’s the conclusion of Axios reporter Kim Hart in a new piece, “Tech’s new Washington problem: Democrats,” where she notes the “public shaming” of tech firms at this week’s hearing on Russian interference in the 2016 election.

And this all feeds into how Democrats are likely to make concentration of corporate power a big political issue in the coming years. As the congressional “Better Deal” agenda puts it: “We will crack down on monopolies and the concentration of economic power that has led to higher prices for consumers, workers, and small business — and make sure Wall Street never endangers Main Street again.”

And while they don’t get name-checked in the agenda, Big Tech is certain to catch some heat. And there are activists eager to break up some of the megaplatforms, or at least highly regulate them.

But it seems to me that not only has the tech-skeptical movement gotten way in front of public opinion, it has also gotten in front of the evidence and research. On that front, it is worth checking out an interview of antitrust scholar Carl Shapiro by Harvard Business Review’s Walter Frick. Read the whole thing, as well as Shapiro’s new paper, “Antitrust in the Time of Populism.” But here are some edited key exchanges:

On increasing industry concentration, and whether that suggests a decline in competition:

We’re not really interested in concentration for his own sake. We use market concentration as a proxy or a signal about whether a market is competitive.  I spend a lot of time in the paper looking at the data and asking whether U.S. markets have in fact become significantly more concentrated over the past 20 or 30 years. There are some significant measurement issues.  Much of what’s been said about changes in concentration does not have a sound basis when one looks more closely at the data. I see some increase in concentration, but not to levels that indicate the presence of many monopolies or even tight-knit oligopolies.

On the proper role of antitrust, and the principles it should follow:

… First, antitrust does not break up or regulate a firm simply because it has grown to be large or powerful. Other laws do that. If we conclude that an industry is a natural monopoly, so competition in that industry just cannot work, we need to resort to price or rate-of-return regulation; we do this for utilities. But antitrust does not punish firms for being successful even if they become dominant. Sometimes one firm is very successful and obtains a dominant position in the market. So long as that firm does not exclude its competitors or engage in “monopolization,” antitrust is going to accept that outcome as part of the competitive process.  This does back to the Sherman Act from 1890, which outlaws “monopolization” but not “monopoly.”  Second, antitrust does not protect small companies from competition by larger ones.  Antitrust is about unleashing the forces of competition, not throttling them.  For over 100 years there have been political tendencies to protect small companies.  If we conclude that is an important social goal, it should be achieved through other means such as the tax system or via regulations, not through antitrust.

On the problems antitrust is not suited for:

The most important one is the excessive political power of large companies — to pick their regulators and to influence Congress in terms of the rules of the road, from environmental policies to labor policies to tax policies. I happen to think that’s a huge problem, and indeed is part of a broader problem of generalized corruption by which money has such enormous influence in politics.  I am hardly alone in having this concern, but antitrust cannot solve that problem.  The solution must come from campaign finance reform, greater transparency, a broader legal definition of corruption, or other policies along those lines.

The second big problem people are asking antitrust to solve is inequality of income and wealth. Effective antitrust naturally helps somewhat with inequality because it protects consumers. But antitrust cannot be a central way of addressing inequality.  That’s got to be tax policy and other major policies such as health care and education.

On the case for more utility-like regulation or some other dramatic regulatory scheme to limit the autonomy of major tech companies:

… Turning to today’s tech firms, one example is requiring disclosure of political ads and who paid for them. Why not? That seems fine. There may be some technical issues, but it seems like a really good idea. Various rules having to do with users’ control over their personal information and their online activities — I’m pretty open to that, too. But when people express general concerns about the power of the large tech firms and look to regulation to check that power, I’m more skeptical.  Take Facebook, for example.  Clearly, Facebook is large and powerful based on their huge social network.  But what problem would regulation solve, and what specific regulation are we talking about? If somebody wants to come up with a proposal for a broad-based regulation that would apply to Facebook, I’m listening. But I don’t think it’s easy to control the economic power of the large tech firms by regulation.  The best way to do that is to make sure they are subject to the forces of competition.