monopoly — Bunk History

President Theodore Roosevelt raising his hat to wave.

The Curse of Bigness

Until more Americans know what happened in periods such as the Gilded Age, they can’t protect themselves from those who abuse history to advance poor policy.

by Amity Shlaes via National Review on July 10, 2023

Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo with his wife Cleo at the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in 1947. Bertoldt Brecht can be seen in the background.

Monopolywood: Why the Paramount Accords Should Not Be Repealed

If studios can again harness the income from exhibition, we may see a return of traditional vertical integration.

by Vaughn Joy via Red Pepper on March 13, 2023

Corporate executives sitting on musicians

Ticketmaster’s Dark History

A 40-year saga of kickbacks, threats, political maneuvering, and the humiliation of Pearl Jam.

by Maureen Tkacik, Krista Brown via The American Prospect on December 21, 2022

Eli Lilly and Company. “Principal Office and Laboratories, Indianapolis, U.S.A.” Ink on paper, from the Hand Book of Pharmacy and Therapeutics, 1919. Via Wikimedia Commons.

How To Make An Oligopoly

A seven-point memo proposing control of the global insulin market.

by Brittany McWilliams via Contingent on April 18, 2021

President Kennedy hands Senator Estes Kefauver the pen he used to sign a bill.

The Greatest Show of Them All

How a New Deal senator’s anti-monopoly investigations changed American business.

by Jill Priluck via Lapham’s Quarterly on April 8, 2019

Unchecked Power

How monopolies have flourished—and undermined democracy.

by Ganesh Sitaraman via The New Republic on November 29, 2018

For Tech Giants, a Cautionary Tale from 19th Century Railroads on Competition’s Limits

How much monopoly is too much monopoly?

by Richard White via The Conversation on March 6, 2018

The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of the U.S. Antitrust Movement

A short history puts contemporary anti-monopoly movements in context.

by Ariel Ezrachi, Maurice E. Stucke via Harvard Business Review on December 15, 2017

The Return of Monopoly

With Amazon on the rise and a business tycoon in the White House, can a new generation of Democrats return the party to its trust-busting roots?

by Matt Stoller via The New Republic on July 13, 2017

Franklin Roosevelt in front of news microphones.

The Rise and Fall of the Word 'Monopoly' in American Life

For several decades, the term was a fixture of newspaper headlines and campaign speeches. Then something changed.

by Stacy Mitchell via The Atlantic on June 20, 2017

Political cartoon depicting Standard Oil as an octopus.

When Did Americans Stop Being Antimonopoly?

Columbia professor Richard R. John explains the history of U.S. monopolies and why antimonopoly should not be conflated with antitrust.

by Richard R. John, Asher Schechter via Pro-Market on November 21, 2016

Jeff Bezos

“What We Have is Capture of the Regulators’ Minds, A Much More Sophisticated Form of Capture Than Putting Money in Their Pockets”

How every major industry and marketplace in America came to be controlled by a single, monolithic player.

by Barry C. Lynn, Asher Schechter via Pro-Market on March 26, 2016

The Love of Monopoly

Why did the U.S. allow its national communications markets to be run by expansive monopolists?

by Tim Wu via The New Republic on May 19, 2011

John Sherman

The Other Sherman’s March

How the younger brother of the famous general set out to destroy the scourge of monopoly power.

by Richard R. John via HNN on October 22, 2024

A computer, business documents, envelope, and a broadcast tower.

How Tech Giants Make History

AT&T’s early leaders used PR to sway public opinion, casting their monopoly as a public service and obscuring its political roots.

by Richard R. John via Pro-Market on October 10, 2024

A Walmart building.

War in the Aisles

Monopolies across the grocery supply chain squeeze consumers and small-business owners alike. Big Data will only entrench those dynamics further.

by Jarod Facundo via The American Prospect on June 12, 2024

A photograph of Anne Morrissy next to the cover of her book, "Street Fight."

The Chicago Taxi Wars of the 1920s

The turbulent history of an often forgotten moment that would leave blood in the streets and shape the modern landscape of Chicago.

by Anne Morrissy, Michael Welch via Chicago Review Of Books on March 6, 2024

What Centuries of Common Law Can Teach Us About Regulating Social Media

Today, tech platforms, including social media, are the new common carriers.

by Ganesh Sitaraman, Morgan Ricks via LPE Project on February 26, 2024

A hand reaches for stacks of coins and bills, superimposed on photos of factory smokestacks.

Profit, Power, and Purpose

The greatest challenge presented by modern corporations, small as well as large, involves purpose.

by Michael Lind via The Hedgehog Review on November 1, 2023

The Tri-City ValleyCats played in the Baseball Hall of Fame’s showcase game during induction weekend in 2004.

The Supreme Court May Overturn the Error That Made Major League Baseball Rich

A pair of minor league clubs are asking the court to reverse the league’s lucrative 101-year-old antitrust exemption.

by Matt Ford via The New Republic on September 21, 2023

Senators Cory Booker and Chuck Grassley conversing.

How Washington Bargained Away Rural America

Every five years, the farm bill brings together Democrats and Republicans. The result is the continued corporatization of agriculture.

by Luke Goldstein via The American Prospect on May 24, 2023

Chicago Bulls guard Norm Van Lier drives past Milwaukee Bucks center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar during Game 2 of the NBA Playoffs at the United Center in Chicago on April 19, 1974.

How Black Basketball Players in the ‘70s Paved the Way for the All Stars Today

The impact of Black ball players' fight for higher compensation and labor protections in the ‘70s is felt today.

by Theresa Runstedtler via TIME on March 16, 2023

1877 political cartoon of a skeleton descending on a railroad, reading "the rioters' railroad to ruin."

Strikers, Octopi, and Visible Hands: The Railroad and American Capitalism

The railroad company remains a site for Americans to grapple with key questions about the nature of American capitalism.

by Scott Huffard via Clio and the Contemporary on December 20, 2022

C. Wright Mills.

C. Wright Mills’s "The Power Elite" Still Speaks to Today’s America

Mills exposed postwar American power and warned of an authoritarian turn in the book, which speaks to our own moment of inequality and right-wing anger.

by Heather Gautney via Jacobin on December 6, 2022

Chlorodyne bottles and other medicines on display with a wooden background

Potions, Pills, and Patents: How Basic Healthcare Became Big Business in America

Basic healthcare in the 20th Century greatly impacted the way that the drug business currently operates in the United States.

by Alexander Zaitchik via Literary Hub on March 4, 2022

Illustrated cargo ship surrounded by a train loop.

How America’s Supply Chains Got Railroaded

Rail deregulation led to consolidation, price-gouging, and a variant of just-in-time unloading that left no slack in the system.

by Matthew Jinoo Buck via The American Prospect on February 4, 2022

The Breakup of "Ma Bell": United States v. AT&T

The US government broke up AT&T's monopoly over the telecom industry through an antitrust case in 1984, leading to a transformation of communication.

by Jake Kobrick via Federal Judicial Center on February 1, 2022

Two bunches of bananas with Chiquita labels.

When the United Fruit Company Tried to Buy Guatemala

How a sitting, elected national government found itself in the position of having to buy its own country.

by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò via The Nation on December 7, 2021

A crowd gathered around a railroad track at the ceremony marking the completion of the first transcontinental railroad.

Breaking the Myth About America’s ‘Great’ Railroad Expansion

Historian Richard White on the greed, ineptitude and economic cost behind the transcontinental railroads, and the implications for infrastructure policy today.

by Richard White, Jake Blumgart via Governing on November 18, 2021

Picture of the field at the Cyclone's Stadium in Coney Island, New York.

How Government Devastated Minor League Baseball

And why stopping the subsidies can help bring it back.

by Matt Welch via Reason on October 10, 2021

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