Posts in Op-Eds
There’s More Than One Way to Fight a Monopoly
There’s More Than One Way to Fight a Monopoly

In this piece for The Atlantic, Nathan Schneider and Open Markets Legal Director Sandeep Vaheesan argue that tougher regulation will help to fight monopoly, but workers and small businesses also need the ability to join forces against corporate power. "Collective power—that is, allowing independent workers and small businesses to collaborate to negotiate better treatment from megacorporations, or to start enterprises of their own—should be a pillar of creating an equitable economy," they assert.

Read More
Op-EdsSandeep Vaheesan2019, August 2019, Labor, Sandeep Vaheesan
Facebook needs more than a $5 billion fine. It needs a new business model
Facebook needs more than a $5 billion fine. It needs a new business model

Open Markets Director of Enforcement Strategy Sally Hubbard published an op-ed on CNN Business on the Federal Trade Commission’s $5 billion settlement with Facebook and asserts that the company needs a new business model. “Instead of fines, changing destructive business models and anticompetitive practices is the only way to lessen the platforms’ harms,” Hubbard writes. “These fixes fall into four main buckets, spelling out the acronym PAIN: privacy, antitrust, interoperability, and non-discrimination.”

Read More
Op-EdsSally Hubbard2019, July 2019
How Antitrust Became Mainstream, Part 3: The Antimonopoly Political Revolution
How Antitrust Became Mainstream, Part 3: The Antimonopoly Political Revolution

In this third and final part of his three-part series on the resurgence of antimonopoly for Pro-Markets, Open Markets Senior Fellow Matt Stoller explains how the election of Donald Trump helped bring antimonopoly thinking back to the forefront of political discourse. “The most important political figures in the return of antimonopoly politics are Elizabeth Warren and Donald Trump,” asserts Stoller. “There are many people in Europe, India, and Australia making critical policy choices, but in terms of setting the boundaries of what is possible, it is Warren and Trump who have re-politicized this area.”

Read More
Op-EdsOpen Markets2019, July 2019, Politics
How Antimonopoly Was Revitalized, Part 2: Barack Obama and the End of the End of History
How Antimonopoly Was Revitalized, Part 2: Barack Obama and the End of the End of History

In this second installment of his three-part series on antitrust’s recent resurrection on Pro-Market, Open Markets Senior Fellow Matt Stoller discusses the legacy of Obama’s presidency. The real policy for which Obama will be known is not Obamacare or Dodd-Frank, but bailing out the banks after the 2008 financial crisis and helping Americans and the rest of the world understand that liberal democratic rhetoric was really an ornamental cover for a system of concentrated financial and political power.

Read More
Op-EdsOpen Markets2019, July 2019, Politics
Why Antimonopoly Awoke From Its Slumber, Part 1: The Clinton Era’s Failed Utopia
Why Antimonopoly Awoke From Its Slumber, Part 1: The Clinton Era’s Failed Utopia

In the first part of a three-part series for Pro-Market, Open Markets Senior Fellow Matt Stoller explains why antimonopoly politics is experiencing a resurgence. “To understand how far we’ve come, we must understand what was,” writes Stoller. “I am going to try and help us reach back to the 1990s, before the financial crisis, Iraq War, Big Tech’s monopolization, before Nickelback jokes, and so forth.”

Read More
Op-EdsOpen Markets2019, July 2019, Competition Law & Philosophy
A Win for Cheap Alcohol, a Loss for Democracy
A Win for Cheap Alcohol, a Loss for Democracy

Legal Director Sandeep Vaheesan blasts the Supreme Court’s decision in Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Association v. Thomas arguing that the decision nullifies the 21st Amendment’s will that states control their alcohol market, and paves the way for monopolistic retail corporations such as Amazon and Walmart to overrun the markets for beer, wine, and spirits.

Read More
Op-EdsSandeep Vaheesan2019, July 2019, Food & Agriculture, Sandeep Vaheesan
Monopolies are killing the American Dream. We must keep them in check
Monopolies are killing the American Dream. We must keep them in check

Open Markets Institute Director of Enforcement Strategy Sally Hubbard has published a piece on CNN Business describing the extent of the concentration crisis in America and how monopoly is killing the American Dream. While big tech remains in the crosshairs for lawmakers and the 2020 presidential candidates, as seen during the first night of the Democratic debate, Hubbard emphasizes that the monopoly problem extends far beyond tech, crippling economic growth, raising prices, depressing wages, and making life increasingly harder for average Americans.

Read More
Op-EdsSally Hubbard2019, July 2019, Competition Law & Philosophy
America’s Monopoly Crisis Hits the Military
America’s Monopoly Crisis Hits the Military

Open Markets Senior Fellow Matthew Stoller and Lucas Kunce published a feature on The American Conservative exposing the devastating history of military monopolization in America. They describe how Wall Street has given foreign rivals such as China growing leverage over our defense industry by usurping what used to be American manufacturing, not only in telecommunications but in various sectors which are key to our national security.

Read More
Op-EdsOpen Markets2019, June 2019, Trade & National Security
Democrats Need to Tame the Facebook Monster They Helped Create
Democrats Need to Tame the Facebook Monster They Helped Create

If you are thinking about Facebook or questions of political economy, an important and telling hearing took place recently in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Democratic leaders Frank Pallone and Jan Schakowsky did an oversight review of Facebook’s regulator, the Federal Trade Commission, with all five commissioners, including Chairman Joe Simons, advancing ideas on how to address privacy rules in America today.

Read More
Op-EdsOpen Markets2019, Facebook, May 2019
We're getting closer to stopping tech giants like Apple from abusing their power
We're getting closer to stopping tech giants like Apple from abusing their power

Of the big four tech giants, Facebook, Google and Amazon have been taking heat for abusing their market power, while Apple has been flying under the radar. That's because Apple's business model, unlike that of Facebook and Google, doesn't depend on closely tracking your data, and it has been more restrained than Amazon in the number of markets it muscles into. But thanks to a US Supreme Court decision on Monday, Apple is finally getting the attention it deserves.

Read More
Op-EdsSally Hubbard2019, May 2019
Noncompete clauses trap #MeToo victims in abusive workplaces. The FTC should ban them.
Noncompete clauses trap #MeToo victims in abusive workplaces. The FTC should ban them.

After decades of virtual silence, the #MeToo movement has publicized the epidemic of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace. The recent New York Times investigation of Sterling Jewelers exposes the depth of the problem and shows how long and hard women’s fight for justice remains. Since women who complain about harassment face retaliation and even termination, often the only way to escape it is to find a new job. Yet for many women, continuing their careers with a new employer turns out to be impossible.

Read More
Op-EdsSally Hubbard2019, May 2019, Labor
When American Capitalism Meant Equality
When American Capitalism Meant Equality

American capitalism used to mean economic equality and security. When I mention this in speeches or talks today, this observation prompts laughter, or outright disbelief. But it’s true. Americans used to believe economic equality was foundational to our political system. That America—at least for those considered citizens—carried with it an implicit promise of rough commercial equality. How did this notion change so radically?

Read More
Op-EdsOpen Markets2019, Competition Law & Philosophy, May 2019, Politics
A Charter for a Clean, Democratic Future
A Charter for a Clean, Democratic Future

While the world has failed to make significant progress in combating climate change over the past decade, the prospect for real action looks very promising today. Proponents of a Green New Deal aim not to nudge the current energy economy toward carbon neutrality but to restructure the production, distribution, and use of energy. Even as it represents a break from the impoverished political imagination of the (still ongoing) neoliberal era, the Green New Deal draws on a rich legal and historical template for transforming our energy economy and deepen democracy.

Read More
Op-EdsSandeep Vaheesan2019, May 2019, Competition Law & Philosophy, Sandeep Vaheesan
Facebook is violating our privacy. Where are the cops?
Facebook is violating our privacy. Where are the cops?

In 2011, the Federal Trade Commission settled charges with Facebook that the social networking giant “deceived consumers by telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private, and then repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public”. Today, the company is again in hot water for, among other things, misusing private user data, failing to stop the spread of fake news and enabling the distribution of toxic and violent multimedia.

Read More
Op-EdsOpen Markets2019, May 2019, Facebook
Facebook's new plan doesn't protect your privacy, and neither does the FTC
Facebook's new plan doesn't protect your privacy, and neither does the FTC

Facebook didn't get where it is today by protecting your privacy. The company made $56 billion in 2018, in part by tracking people both on and off its platform and then selling targeted advertisements based on that surveillance. Yet when Facebook announced a shift to a "privacy-focused communications platform" in March and unveiled a redesign toward private messaging at its F8 developers conference on Tuesday, Facebook's stock value did not even dip. How could that be, if surveillance is essential to Facebook's business model?

Read More
Op-EdsSally Hubbard2019, May 2019, Facebook
BuzzFeed News Opinion: No More Payoffs For Layoffs
BuzzFeed News Opinion: No More Payoffs For Layoffs

Open Markets fellow Matthew Stoller and Deputy Director Sarah Miller published an op-ed on BuzzFeed News explaining that while corporate megamergers often result in thousands of job cuts, corporate executives, on the other hand, are rewarded with sweet multi-million dollar golden parachutes to sell their companies in what amounts to a form of "normalized corruption," which they call on Congress to eliminate.

Read More
Op-EdsOpen Markets2019, May 2019, Labor
Restoring Antimonopoly Through Bright-Line Rules
Restoring Antimonopoly Through Bright-Line Rules

The “consumer welfare” approach to antimonopoly is the main contributor to the extreme and dangerous concentrations of power that Americans face today. In place of this vague, subjective, easily manipulated, and fundamentally corrupt framework, we propose a system of simple rules that is true to the original American approach to building and protecting an open and democratic society.

Read More
Op-EdsOpen Markets2019, April 2019, Competition Law & Philosophy, Labor