Hello, all,

We wanted to make sure you caught the groundbreaking new article by Open Markets Executive Director Barry Lynn on the cover of the October issue of Harper's Magazine. In “Antitrust Revolution: Liberal Democracy’s Last Stand Against Big Tech,” Lynn provides an entirely fresh look at the Biden-Harris administration’s transformational fight to protect our democracy, liberties, and prosperity from the power and reach of today’s biggest tech monopolies. Lynn also makes clear how much hard work remains. Along the way, Lynn draws an unsparing portrait of the dangers posed by a continuing failure of many leading liberals to question their own antiquated – and often anti-democratic – assumptions about how markets and corporations work.

Using simple, clear stories Lynn interweaves many of the key issues of the day into a sharp essay about the past and future of American democracy in the era of Google, Musk, and Trump. This includes analysis of what has gone wrong with the Supreme Court and the origins of America’s crisis of democracy. Lynn provides both a stone-cold warning about the extreme nature of the threat big tech still poses and a bracing description of our once-a-century opportunity to rebuild a safe, forward-looking, and truly democratic society in the digital age.

For nearly a quarter century, Lynn’s close studies of the structure of the US political economy have provided much of the foundation for the renewal of antimonopoly law and enforcement in the US and Europe, and for the growing movement to renovate America’s original system of liberty for the 21st century. This includes three books – End of the Line (2005), Cornered (2010), and Liberty from All Masters (2020) – as well as numerous articles, speeches, and Congressional testimony. In many respects, Lynn’s new essay in Harper’s serves as a summation of this effort.