Dear Friends,

Wow – what a way to finish a decade. Three antitrust lawsuits [[link removed]] against Google, two [[link removed]] against Facebook, and the most important Congressional investigation [[link removed]] of private power in a century by the Cicilline Committee. When we launched Open Markets in 2011, most folks laughed at our mission. Yet we always knew this day would come.

It’s important to celebrate victories and these five lawsuits are true wins. They will tie up these corporations in court for years, and will likely result in fundamental changes to their business models. And these lawsuits are not the only light in these dark days. As our new cover article [[link removed]] in the Washington Monthly makes clear, even in the face of a divided Congress, Joe Biden can use existing law to take on monopoly power in ways that truly transform America for the better.

But it’s also vital to acknowledge that the lawsuits against Google and Facebook are just the start of the next stage in the effort to rebuild American democracy and prosperity after a generation of rule by monopolist. Online platform corporations have upset power balances in almost every corner of our society, and we face years of hard work to reestablish a principles-based rule of law to govern our digital economy. We must also begin now to restructure markets in ways that empower citizens to rebuild the industries devastated by monopolists—including journalism, retail, health care, farming, energy, books, music, and even large portions of our traditional vaccine system (as this recent Open Markets report [[link removed]] details).

Perhaps most important, now that the American people are finally taking action against concentrated private power, we have to decide what sort of world we want to make. Will we aim to create an open, international, liberal society? Or a society that is closed, nationalistic, and autocratic? For decades, Americans have been subject to the visions of the future imposed on us by the rich and powerful. Our task, now, is to relearn how to envision the sort of world we want to live in.

Our whole team here at Open Markets looks forward to working with you in the days ahead to sketch out the next stage of our strategy and movement. The victories against Google and Facebook have affirmed the value of Open Markets’ unique ability to combine vanguard reporting and research, history-based legal and political analyses, and powerful grassroots coalitions designed to fight for fundamental change. We are confident this model will continue to deliver victories that can transform America.

As we reach the end of the year, I do want to take a moment to look back at some of the many ways Open Markets moved the fight forward over the last 12 months. As was true of all of our organizations, COVID-19 posed a huge challenge to every member of our team. Yet in many ways, 2020 proved to be another breakout year for Open Markets. In addition to the historic wins against Big Tech, we notched a truly impressive list of advances in our work to stop monopolies. These include:

Setting the Tone for the Fight. In the first days of COVID-19, Open Markets threw down the gauntlet with our call for a moratorium on mergers [[link removed]], which was soon embraced by Sen. Warren, Sen. Booker, and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, and many others.

Building the Movement. Open Markets expanded on our role as a founding member of the Athena coalition by providing a wide range of support to progressive coalitions. We also played a key role in leveraging [[link removed]] the debate [[link removed]] over who should head Biden’s Department of Agriculture to build an anti-monopoly coalition designed to ensure that agency serves all American people.

Protecting Democracy. We increased our efforts to protect freedom of expression and the free press from concentrated power and control by leading the fight to rebuild advertising-supported journalism [[link removed]] and to prevent further concentration [[link removed]]among book publishers. The French government recognized Open Markets for these efforts in the book The Revival of Democracy [[link removed]] in America.

Fighting for the Powerless. The Open Markets team led the way in protecting powerless Americans from unfair employment contracts [[link removed]], rapacious hospitals [[link removed]], and abusive treatment in slaughterhouses [[link removed]] and warehouses [[link removed]].

Winning the Philosophical Battle. The New York Times endorsed [[link removed]] our foundational fight to overturn the neoliberal “consumer welfare” philosophy of anti-monopoly, with the Times writing in December that this idea had served “to facilitate corporate concentration at the expense of other businesses, of workers and of economic growth.”

Reestablishing the Principle of Nondiscrimination. Open Markets devoted much of this year to underscoring – in testimony, articles, and books – the need to apply nondiscrimination rules [[link removed]] to the platform monopolists. In October, the Cicilline Committee fully embraced [[link removed]] our thinking.

Promoting Peaceful and Constructive International Cooperation. We partnered with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris to demonstrate the benefits of international cooperation and engagement in multiple events, including in a trans-Atlantic conference [[link removed]] with Nobel Prize Economist Paul Romer, Pascal Lamy, and Congressman David Cicilline.

Raising Fresh Warnings. Open Markets published vanguard www.openmarketsinstitute.org [[link removed]] warnings [[link removed]] of risk to U.S. supply chains, electricity systems, privacy, and liberal trade, by our fellows Johnny Ryan, Nikki Usher, Mya Frazier, and Beth Baltzan, and by reporters including Rachel Cohen and Steve Waldman.

Strengthening the Open Markets Institute. 2020 marked a major expansion of Open Markets as as we built, deepened, and strengthened our team, and as we launched our Center for Journalism and Liberty [[link removed]], thanks to support from the Knight Foundation.

Shaping the Strategic Narrative. Open Markets continued our pioneering effort to demonstrate how anti-monopolism can be used to shape a politics of transformation in America and around the world. We did so in-depth in two important new books – Sally Hubbard’s Monopolies Suck: The 7 Ways Big Corporations Rule Your Life and How to Take Back Control [[link removed]] and my own Liberty from All Masters: The New American Autocracy vs. the Will of the People [[link removed]].

We truly have reversed the effort to hide corporate power by neoliberal ideologues like Robert Bork. And we could not have done any of this without you.

Now, we’re moving to reshape America so that it works for all people, not just the few. And we will need you just as much for this next stage in the fight.

If you’d like to continue supporting our anti-monopoly movement, please consider supporting [[link removed]] Open Markets today (and please consider making your donation recurring).

From all of us at Open Markets Institute, thank you. We look forward to fighting arm in arm in the days and months to come.

Barry Lynn

Executive Director

Open Markets Institute

Donate Here [[link removed]] Open Markets Institute

1440 G St NW, Washington, DC xxxxxx Unsubscribe [link removed]