Featured: Confronting America's Concentration Crisis

For decades, policymakers allowed corporations to become bigger and more powerful. Our new report, “Confronting America’s Concentration Crisis: A Ledger of Harms and Framework for Advancing Economic Liberty for All,” provides a comprehensive overview of the growing body of research that shows how extreme concentration is contributing to a broad range of economic and social ills. We also map out the first comprehensive solutions framework to shed light on the path forward, which The Washington Post covered in an exclusive report. 

Translating this anti-monopoly agenda into action will be central to whether and how quickly our society can become more just, equitable, and secure — but voters are already showing they can connect the dots between their economic struggles and the failure of policymakers to protect them from powerful corporations. Just a month after our sister 501(c)4 organization, Fight Corporate Monopolies, launched, it played a supporting role in Cori Bush's surprise win in St. Louis, toppling a 20 year incumbent. Learn more here.

The Latest

Breaking the Power of Big Tech. In the days before the Antitrust Subcommittee’s remarkable hearing with the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, Economic Liberties released a pair of big tech trackers, exposing the outsized power of Silicon Valley titans. After the hearing concluded, Economic Liberties’ Executive Director Sarah Miller spoke with BBC World News and did a deep dive on C-SPAN and the Intercept’s popular podcast. Matt Stoller, Economic Liberties’ Research Director, published an op-ed in The Guardian, spelling out why the hearing marked a critical moment in the revival of the American antitrust movement. And as Axios reported, we worked with more than 20 other organizations to explain to Congress that breaking up these dominant corporations is key to protecting workers, small businesses, communities, and democracy.  

Building a New Consensus. Following up on her piece in Democracy Journal, Economic Liberties’ Executive Director Sarah Miller explained in The Appeal why progressives must break with the 1970s-era, hands-off antitrust ideology that is distorting our democracy and making our economy more and more unequal. Days later, The Economist also delved into the issue, citing Economic Liberties’ Matt Stoller, along with scholar Lina Khan, as primary thought leaders articulating a new way forward for antitrust.

Taking on Pandemic Profiteers. As Senior Fellow Maureen Tkacik’s feature in The Washington Post revealed, delivery apps like Doordash, Grubhub, Postmates and UberEats are taking a page out of Amazon’s playbook and abusing restaurants, workers, and consumers. We’re fighting back. Just last week, Economic Liberties partnered with the American Sustainable Business Council and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance to launch our first small business organizing and advocacy campaign, Protect Our Restaurants. We’re bringing together small business groups and an initial cohort of 30 independent restaurants around the country to force policymakers to address delivery app platforms’ predatory behavior. You can read more in Axios, Roll Call and Morning Consult.

Growing Our Team. Brandi Collins-Dexter, a longtime leader for racial and economic justice at Color of Change, one of the architects behind the Facebook advertiser boycott, and now a visiting fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, is joining Economic Liberties’ Steering Committee. Hear her talk about monopoly power and racial justice with Zephyr Teachout at Politics & Prose tonight. We also welcomed a new Director of National Security Policy, former Marine and Pentagon official Lucas Kunce, to shape policy development and advocacy related to corporate consolidation’s impact on America’s national security. Check out his debut piece on how consolidation in tech made TikTok possible.

Anti-Monopoly Reading Club. Zephyr Teachout, a member of Economic Liberties’ Steering Committee, and David Dayen, Executive Editor of The American Prospect, released new books on the dangers of monopolies and how we can take our power back. You can find Zephyr Teachout’s Break ‘Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money here and David Dayen’s Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power here.

News from Around the Network

* The Institute for Local Self-Reliance released Amazon’s Monopoly Tollbooth, a new report that finds that Amazon is exploiting its gatekeeper status to extract a growing cut of fees from the third-party sellers on its platform.

* Using documents unearthed by the House Antitrust Subcommittee in its investigation of large technology platforms, Epic Games filed two antitrust suits against Apple and Google, alleging the platforms are acting as app store gatekeepers. 

* The Wall Street Journal reported that the Department of Justice is considering two possible antitrust cases against Google, and may bring suit in coming weeks.

* “Monopoly Power Lies Behind Worst Trends in U.S,” finds a new paper from two Federal Reserve Board economists.