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3 Works 242 Membros 5 Críticas

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Obras por Zephyr Teachout

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

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female

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Críticas

Really enjoyed this book and learned a lot - more than I expected on both counts. A lot of interesting legal and political history.
 
Assinalado
steve02476 | 1 outra crítica | Jan 3, 2023 |
Zephyr Teachout makes a passionate case for renewed enforcement of antitrust laws as a progressive priority, because monopolies and oligopolies pose a basic threat to democracy through concentration of economic power. She touches on many industries, from technology to food processing to big pharma and banking, with victims ranging from consumers to newspapers to farmers. Teachout also talks about the increasing concentration of wealth among the top 1% that results from the government shirking its responsibilities to enforce anti-trust legislation, like Hart-Scott-Rodino. Sadly, her message is badly diluted by skipping around, coming to conclusions not supported by her argument(s), and the use popular catchphrases are not explained.… (mais)
 
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skipstern | 2 outras críticas | Jul 11, 2021 |
This case against big business monopolies emphasis the impact on democracy and the systematic stripping of rights through the courts, journalism and politics. Endnotes supports and documents sources for the multiple scenarios presented. The author proposes that the current environment is really for change and closer look at where money power resides.
 
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bemislibrary | 2 outras críticas | Jul 5, 2020 |
Numerous visitors to the USA have noted that far from being free, Americans seem to be the most insecure and fearful people on Earth. Zephyr Teachout can explain that. In her relentless Break ‘Em Up, she shows with total clarity that all symptoms lead back to the same root cause: monopoly. She demonstrates that the stunning concentration of power in the USA is not just economic. It is political too, and the direct, visible result is literally no choice for Americans, even for the government. It’s why wages are low, why interest rates are low and why choice is a laughable concept. Everything is managed and manipulated for profit and power.

In every domain, from journalism to retail to defense, education and justice, Americans have no choice any more. To get a job, they have to sign away their rights to sue, unionize or talk politics (other than the politics the company wants to promote). Despite Justice Antonin Scalia’s absurd decisions, this is not “freedom of choice” – all monopolies are doing it, and adding non-disclosure and non-compete agreements on top of it, even for the lowliest jobs. All disputes go to arbitration, not a US court. Arbitration is paid for by the company, with company-paid arbitrators: secret, unappealable and final. If an American quits a bad job, it could take years to find an equivalent position without all the restrictions. This is because there is unspoken collusion, born of the fact that giant monopolies buy up smaller companies and impose their codes on them. It is so appealing, they all do it now. The same applies to hours: low-pay workers get double jeopardy as giant monopolies make sure they work less than full time, keeping their incomes low while also denying them benefits like paid sick days that are only available to FTs (fulltimers).There is no freedom to choose among employers when they all offer the same bad deal – because they all belong to the same monopoly.

For all those in the gig economy, good luck finding a new gig without all the restrictions, conditions, expenses and lousy pay. They won’t find one, because all the Ubers and Doordashes and Amazons offer the same miserable conditions. The employee takes all the risk and gets no real reward. That’s the freedom to choose in America. In other eras it was called serfdom. In America, it is called freedom.

Similarly, consumers have no choice, as every ecommerce site provides an unreadable but totally enforceable contract whereby the purchaser gives up all right to anything. Going elsewhere with hard-earned cash results in the same thing. There is no choice but to agree to everything and move on.

Beyond the local craft brewpub, all beers are made by two companies. There are only four major airlines, three carmakers, a clutch of banks. Banks arrange things so switching among them is pointless when not unnecessarily difficult. Freedom of choice - taking your business elsewhere - is Welcome to Dystopia. In every sector of the economy, three to five companies dominate. They tolerate a handful of tiny firms, if only so they can bleat there is healthy competition and no monopoly situation after all.

Amazon didn’t like a successful diaper company competing with it, right on the Amazon platform. So it bought the company just to shut it down. Less choice for Americans and freedom to price at will for Amazon. Not to put too fine a point on it, Teachout says the closest analog to what the tech monopolies have done to the economy is the Mafia.

Teachout found studies showing hospital mergers always result in higher prices, as competition is eliminated. Drugmakers, as every American knows by now, simply raise prices as they wish, sometimes thousands of percent, because drugmakers don’t compete, and patent rules have been twisted out of all proportion to accommodate them. They actually pay generic makers not to enter a market so they can milk it a few years longer before there is a competing pill. The generic makers get revenue without the bother of actually manufacturing and distributing a product. Everybody’s happy. Except the American consumer, who has no choice. S/he can take the prescription to another pharmacy, but guess what? Same deal. Because there are really just three PBMs (pharma benefits managers) running the whole industry behind the scenes. The American freedom to take its business elsewhere is empty.

Farmers are trapped by a tiny handful of giants who unspokenly agree not to poach or enter each other’s territory. They trap farmers into taking on huge debt, pay them ever less for their produce, and force them to buy all their supplies, seeds, fertilizers, chemicals and machinery from company-specified vendors. They regulate air circulation and lighting, and in general, make farmers into sharecroppers. Or they will lose their contract, and their farm. There is no choice to go with anyone else. If they stay outside the stranglehold, there is no one to sell to. Teachout calls this the Chickenization of America, and it applies not just to farmers, but franchise “owners” and other small businesses.

Even the farm tractor is beyond choice. John Deere says owners cannot tamper with their own machinery. They are required to wait for an official service agent, and pay the outrageous fees, even though they bought the equipment outright. And are used to making their own repairs and modifications. Tyson, Perdue, Monsanto and the like can experiment on farmers, giving them untested seed or prescribing untried chemical compounds. If that results in a poorer crop, too bad. And farmers are forbidden from talking to each other. Company reps will find out if one knows more than s/he should, and will destroy them all. Sharing is off the table. Leaving the firm means leaving fields fallow for years, lest any stray company seed remain. Surveillance is total. Suicides among farmers are at epic highs. They are trapped, both financially and physically, with no hope of escape from the American Dream.

Possibly more frightening is the political takeover. The obvious one is the PAC (political action committee), in which firms freely outspend actual candidates in the runup to elections. And lobbying, where a billion dollars is spread over Washington and state Capitols to grease the way for monopolies. They heavily fund ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), which prepares actual legislation they want lawmakers to pass. And they do, giving many states surprisingly identical statutes that magically cater to the whims of giant corporations, while restricting voting, unions, strikes, lawsuits, liability and capping minimum wages. They even prevent towns from providing internet services when none of the monopolists will. But that’s just on the outside. On the inside, they talk directly to the president, become cabinet secretaries or head up agencies to effect their own bidding, ridding themselves of safety regulations and ignoring laws they were put there to enforce.

With unemployment at near record lows, economists were expecting wages to go up. Companies need to keep their good people and hire more, so wages and benefits should have risen in such a tight market. But they didn’t. Monopolies have the power to set the rates, avoid bidding wars, and by definition avoid competition. So even economists were surprised at the extent of the power of monopolies. “They own the market,” Teachout says. “They don’t actually participate in it.” It’s why interest rates remain at rock bottom. The monopolies set the rates, or they walk. Another headscratcher for economists solved.

Even the government is hamstrung. It used to be that DoD (Defense Department) contract bids came from 65 different companies. Today the number is five. Five giant monopolies. So $600 hammers and multibillion dollar ripoffs are common. It is so bad the department must still award contracts to these five, even right after they have been convicted of massive fraud against the DoD and have paid out billions in fines (using taxpayer money). The government cannot take its business elsewhere; it has no choice either.

Facebook, Google and Amazon rate their own discussions in Break ‘Em Up. Teachout accuses Google and Facebook of destroying journalism, by simply stealing their content and selling ads that would normally have gone to the newspaper or magazine it was stolen from. The result is billions to Facebook, and bankruptcy for newspapers: “In less than a decade, we have shifted from a democracy with reporters in most courtrooms to one with a national elite press and a big void filled with unchecked gossip and propaganda. Facebook and Google have deliberately, radically poisoned the way we read and the way we relate to each other. They have devalued the very idea of news. “ Teachout is nothing if not direct.

For me, Teachout’s biggest point is that consumers and voters can no longer affect corporate actions. Boycotts not only don’t work any more, but companies come out stronger for simply ignoring them. Trying to personally boycott say, Google, is no longer even possible. She says a quarter of the messages threatening Google with a boycott came in over Android phones. Google even tracks pedestrians in the streets of New York – it is unavoidable.

The only effective workaround tool left to the American populous is antitrust laws. Only enforcement of the existing laws can get monopolists to change. The pressure needs to be on government, not on the companies themselves. She says ‘It should be as easy to unionize or create a co-operative, as it is hard to merge goliaths.” And “Democratic governance is messy and will lead to mistakes, but corporate government will lead to tyranny.” Monopolies need to be broken up, separated into component firms, and forbidden from merging with any other firm with say a 5% market share. No mergers should be allowed where their market share tops 20%. Smaller market share means more competitors, more options for customers, and more success in effecting change among them.

The book is a well-organized, clearly thought out and a laser-focused attack on monopolies. Teachout is forceful. She uses only simple, direct language, making the book a fast and penetrating read. She wants everyone to understand the jig is up. Americans should now know the game and its scoring, and they have to stop it. Government is the last hope. It has happened before, when trusts dominated the country, labor was slavery and rights were none. Popular movements pounded away, until Teddy Roosevelt broke the trusts, followed by Wilson and FDR who restructured the laws to prevent this ever happening again. Unfortunately, the Reagan administration preferred it the other way, and dismantled most of what had been set up and very successfully executed over most of the century. Teachout is hopeful the pendulum is swinging the other way again, but everyone needs to help give it a push. If America is just going to allow its hard fought laws to be totally ignored, then rights and freedoms are meaningless. Americans should not have to hear from its electeds that “Corporations are people too, my friend.”

Teachout says that in the same letter where he proposed freedom of speech for the new constitution, Thomas Jefferson also wanted anti-monopoly as a foundational principle. How very different the country would be today had he succeeded.

David Wineberg
… (mais)
2 vote
Assinalado
DavidWineberg | 2 outras críticas | May 27, 2020 |

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Estatísticas

Obras
3
Membros
242
Popularidade
#93,893
Avaliação
4.1
Críticas
5
ISBN
14

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