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Dear John,
The structure of the economy depends on two countervailing forces that can act in concert to shift the balance of power between workers and consumers on one end, and corporations, CEOs, and shareholders on the other -- unionization and monopolization.
Over the last 35 years, under both parties, unionization decreased and monopolization increased, leading to the disempowerment of workers and the hand-over-fist enrichment of the rich. It’s no wonder the working class has been leaving the Democratic Party in droves. With such little difference in policy, they could see no connection to the party that used to speak for them.
Fortunately, “Scranton Joe” Biden has turned this around in his four years in office, and we can hope for a continuation of the trend if Vice President Harris is elected and if she maintains his commitment to pro-union and antitrust efforts.
This will require Harris to take a decisive stance backing powerhouse FTC chair Lina Khan, despite the demands for her firing by big-donor billionaires Reid Hoffman, Barry Diller, and Vinod Khosla.
In her three short years as FTC chair, Lina Khan has taken on dozens of major antitrust cases. Together with DOJ Antitrust Division head, Jonathan Kanter, the administration has now won an historic decision against Google as an illegal monopoly.
Khan is bucking the accommodationist, “play-it-safe” tradition of previous antitrust officials, taking on corporate consolidation wherever she sees it. Under Khan’s leadership, the FTC has brought cases against Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Agriculture, Big Tech, and Big Housing, as well as credit card companies, private equity firms, the military industrial complex, and more.
Tell FTC chair Lina Khan and Asst. Attorney General Jonathan Kanter to keep up their powerful work fighting for working people and against corporate monopolies! And send a message to Vice President Kamala Harris to stand behind these antitrust enforcers!
Under the Biden-Harris administration, legal actions have been brought against Ticketmaster, Apple, Microsoft, and UnitedHealth, as well as against junk fees, non-compete agreements, and the proposed Kroger-Albertsons grocery megamerger.
In one recent victory, Khan took on pharmaceutical companies that were charging patients hundreds of dollars for each life-saving inhaler. The FTC found this price gouging was based on bogus patents for small inhaler parts that should not have been patented separately. Under pressure from Khan, the companies agreed to cap the cost of all inhalers at $35.
The price of consolidation for consumers is formidable. Junk fees cost consumers over $90 billion a year, and non-compete agreements, which prevent employees from taking positions at competing companies after leaving, cost job seekers as much as $300 billion every year.
Khan expresses her philosophy simply, saying, “Government is supposed to be on the side of the people and enforce the laws to protect them.” Not only does a strong antitrust agenda enforce the laws after they are broken, it can also deter companies from breaking the laws in the first place.
Fundamentally, this is about the underlying structure of the economy. Stronger antitrust and unionization strengthens Democrats’ efforts to turn the levers of power away from oligarchic billionaires and toward middle and working-class Americans.
Click here to combat the efforts of billionaires and CEOs to get Khan and Kanter fired, and show your support for the Biden-Harris antitrust agenda!
And thank you for standing on the side of the antitrust, pro-union economy!
Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action
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