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One of the marks of success is when those who would like to see you fail begin to draw attention to your events, hoping to inspire a negative reaction. So we hope you didn’t miss the fact that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, corporate America’s biggest lobbying arm, put out a blog post and [[link removed]] graphic [[link removed]] the day before our second Anti-Monopoly Summit [[link removed]] attempting to ridicule our event and movement by comparing it to…concentrated orange juice and New Coke.
Needless to say, the unfunny satire fell — dare we say it — flat.
The Summit, hosted in partnership with more than a dozen labor and business organizations, instead demonstrated the growing appeal of the anti-monopoly movement. Our small and scrappy organization — we still have less than twenty staffers — is successfully bringing together civil society, labor and business to tackle monopoly power. It is a movement of people across the United States, not one consisting of Washington insider lobbyists, which is exactly why the Chamber is so scared.
Nearly 280 people crowded into the Washington Westin to attend our Summit and another 15,000 watched online across platforms. They listened to keynote speeches by F [[link removed]] TC [[link removed]] Chair Khan [[link removed]] , who spoke movingly about how monopolists cause fear across the economy, and A [[link removed]] AG [[link removed]] Kanter [[link removed]] , who talked about the suits his office has filed on behalf of the American people. CEA Chair [[link removed]] Bernstein [[link removed]] emphasized the Biden administration’s whole-of-government approach to fighting for a fair and open economy, not one manipulated by dominant corporations. CFPB Director Chopra [[link removed]] took part in a fireside chat with MSNBC host Symone Sanders-Townsend, offering a masterclass in how an agency can use its power to protect people from unfair credit card and debt collection practices. Sen. Warren [[link removed]] talked about what comes next for the movement with our Senior Advisor Bharat Ramamurti. Rep. DeLauro [[link removed]] moderated an important discussion on the role of trade policy to restrain corporate power. We closed the day with Sen. Chris Murphy [[link removed]] , who made a powerful connection between decades of neoliberal politics and economics and the increasing loneliness and isolation of so many Americans. With over 25 reporters in attendance, the Summit made a lot of noise in the media, with coverage of the day featured in outlets like Bloomberg [[link removed]] , HuffPost [[link removed]] , The Hill [[link removed]] , along with multiple legal [[link removed]] and healthcare [[link removed]] trade outlets.
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Throughout the day, we talked about both how far we’ve come ( don't miss our opening video [[link removed]] ) and the steps needed to institutionalize the anti-monopoly movement’s progress. We heard from legislators pushing back against corporate power in state capitols, healthcare CEOs, doctors, and pharmacists on tackling the power of Big Medicine, along with small business and labor leaders on building a durable alliance to tackle the power of dominant corporations.
One of our most talked about panels was a lively session on corporate power and pricing moderated by The New York Times’ David Leonhardt, who recently published a widely [[link removed]] - [[link removed]] discussed piece [[link removed]] on the growing power of what he called the “new centrism” — the bipartisan movement to push back against the unfettered free market that’s defined the past several decades of American life — which once again legitimized the political salience of this movement. And we wrapped the day with a focus on what comes next: the role of the courts and the importance of robust legal remedies, featuring an animated discussion between Tim Wu, Bill Baer and Cris Miller from StubHub.
In more good news, two days after our Summit, the Department of Justice and a bipartisan group of 30 state attorneys general filed its long-awaited antitrust suit against Live Nation-Ticketmaster. We were central in calling attention to the company’s monopoly, arguing as far back as 2021 in Courage To Learn [[link removed]] , before the Taylor Swift ticket debacle put it on the radar of — well, almost everyone — the company needed to be busted up. We went on to form the Break Up Ticketmaster [[link removed]] coalition with 15 other music, sports and consumer advocacy groups in October 2022 [[link removed]] , which mobilized over 100,000 fans, artists, and live events professionals to urge the DOJ to unwind the merger, and published a paper [[link removed]] on the structural remedies to address the problem. You can read a full breakdown of the lawsuit in our Research Director Matt Stoller’s article [[link removed]] . As our Managing Editor Helaine Olen explained in an MSNBC [[link removed]] column [[link removed]] , the lawsuit is an important sign of our new era of enforcement because “ e ven for people who don’t live and breathe politics, Live Nation-Ticketmaster has come to symbolize how large and increasingly unaccountable corporations diminish our lives even as they gouge us financially .”
If you weren’t able to attend, or haven’t yet viewed the Summit, you can watch most of the sessions here [[link removed]] . You’ll find it was a cheerful, hopeful, inspiring, informative and fun day — one that wouldn’t have been possible without your support.
Best,
Nidhi Hegde
Interim Executive Director
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American Economic Liberties Project
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