Posts in Op-Eds
The Monopolization of Milk
The Monopolization of Milk

Open Markets Food & Power researcher and reporter Claire Kelloway published an op-ed on the Washington Monthly on November 21, 2019 on how America’s biggest dairy co-op is trying to become even bigger. Kelloway writes that one critical reason dairy farms feel pressure to consolidate is because milk retailers, buyers, and, processors have spent years consolidating around them. Now, a merger between major milk monopolists threatens to deal another blow to ailing dairy farmers, and its not clear if federal enforcers will do anything to stop it.

Read More
Op-EdsClaire Kelloway2019, November 2019, Food & Agriculture, Claire Kelloway
A Fair Labor Market for Food-Chain Workers
A Fair Labor Market for Food-Chain Workers

Open Markets' Sandeep Vaheesan and Claire Kelloway published a piece on The American Prospect on November 21, 2019 calling for a fair labor market for food chain workers. An overwhelmingly disenfranchised immigrant workforce and corporate collusion and concentration define work in food and agriculture today, they assert. Reforming these labor markets is essential.

Read More
Op-EdsSandeep Vaheesan2019, November 2019, Sandeep Vaheesan, Food & Agriculture, Labor, Claire Kelloway
How Israel’s Antimonopolists Helped Take Down Benjamin Netanyahu
How Israel’s Antimonopolists Helped Take Down Benjamin Netanyahu

Open Markets Fellow Matt Stoller published a piece on Pro-Market on November 13, 2019 writing that the corruption exposed by Israeli antimonopolists has been a key driver of Benjamin Netanyahu’s current political woes. "If Israelis, in one of the most complex geopolitical situations in the world, can address their oligarchs, then people everywhere can do it too," Stoller writes.

Read More
Op-EdsOpen Markets2019, November 2019, Politics
Make Antitrust Democratic Again!
Make Antitrust Democratic Again!

Prof. Sanjukta Paul and Sandeep Vaheesan published a piece on The Nation asserting that the response to the next recession should put economic power back in the hands of the people. “Rebuilding antitrust law is an essential element of the progressive economic policy agenda,” the write. “Antitrust should be part of a suite of reforms in the Green New Deal—something that we sorely need, no matter when or how hard the next recession hits.”

Read More
Op-EdsSandeep Vaheesan2019, November 2019, Competition Law & Philosophy, Sandeep Vaheesan
American workers are bored and disillusioned. Here's what may bring them back
American workers are bored and disillusioned. Here's what may bring them back

Open Markets Fellow Matt Stoller writes that American workers are increasingly bored and disillusioned, locked in increasingly centralized castles of lazy profit. Some are mistreated, but for even the most scientifically in demand, luxurious poké bowls don’t substitute for doing meaningful work. But he asserts it’s time to set American producers free once again to solve real problems. We’ve done it before. It’s called competition.

Read More
Op-EdsOpen Markets2019, November 2019, Labor
How Democrats Became the Party of Monopoly and Corruption
How Democrats Became the Party of Monopoly and Corruption

In this excerpt of his new book "Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy," Open Markets Fellow Matt Stoller explains how the "new" Democrats like Dale Bumpers and Bill Clinton of Arkansas worked to rid their state of the usury caps meant to protect the "plain people" from the banker and financier. The Democratic Party embraced not just the tactics, but the ideology of the Chicago School.

Read More
Op-EdsOpen Markets2019, October 2019, Politics
Tech Companies Are Destroying Democracy and the Free Press
Tech Companies Are Destroying Democracy and the Free Press

In this op-ed for the New York Times, Open Markets Fellow Matt Stoller spotlights how advertising revenue that used to go to quality journalism is now captured by big tech intermediaries, and some of that money now goes to dishonest, low-quality and fraudulent content. "The collapse of journalism and democracy in the face of the internet is not inevitable," he argues. "To save democracy and the free press, we must eliminate Google and Facebook’s control over the information commons."

Read More
Op-EdsOpen Markets2019, October 2019, Google, Facebook, Amazon
Corporate America's Second War With the Rule of Law
Corporate America's Second War With the Rule of Law

Uber, Facebook, and Google are increasingly behaving like the law-flouting financial empires of the 1920s, asserts Open Markets Fellow Matt Stoller. We know how that turned out. "The rule of law is a precious political achievement of liberal democracy," Stoller writes. "It doesn’t just happen. We the people, along with elected public servants, have to make it happen. "

Read More
Op-EdsOpen Markets2019, October 2019, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Politics
The Rise and Fall of Andrew Mellon
The Rise and Fall of Andrew Mellon

He was America’s most powerful businessman and the Treasury secretary throughout the 1920s. His corruption would lead to an impeachment inquiry. This is an exclusive excerpt for The American Prospect from the new book 'Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy', by Open Markets Fellow Matt Stoller, out this month from Simon & Schuster.

Read More
Op-EdsOpen Markets2019, October 2019
Private Equity Chases Ambulances
Private Equity Chases Ambulances

Open Markets Health Care Researcher and Reporter Olivia Webb writes on The American Prospect about how investment firms have bought up emergency medical service companies, squeezing soaring profits from vulnerable patients. "The Great Recession created an opportunity to financialize the practice of lifesaving emergency transport," she writes. "After 2008, a number of private equity firms moved to take over ambulance and air ambulance providers."

Read More
Op-EdsOpen Markets2019, October 2019
Unleash the Existing Anti-Monopoly Arsenal
Unleash the Existing Anti-Monopoly Arsenal

Open Markets Legal Director Sandeep Vaheesan argues on The American Prospect that corporate power can be neutralized if federal agencies simply used the prodigious authority they’ve been granted. "The president already has extraordinary authority under decades-old statutes," Vaheesan writes. "The question is will he or she appoint officials—to the Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and other agencies—determined to tame corporate dominance of our economy and politics."

Read More
Op-EdsSandeep Vaheesan2019, September 2019, Competition Law & Philosophy, Sandeep Vaheesan
The great break-up of Big Tech is finally beginning
The great break-up of Big Tech is finally beginning

Open Markets Senior Fellow Matt Stoller published a piece on The Guardian on the heels of news that U.S. state attorneys general are launching a bipartisan investigation into Facebook and Google. “These corporations have become too powerful to be contained by democratic societies,” he writes. “We must work through our government to break them up and regulate our information commons, or they will end up becoming our government and choosing what we see and know about the world around us.”

Read More
Op-EdsOpen Markets2019, September 2019, Amazon, Google, Facebook
We Must End "Rule By Contract"
We Must End "Rule By Contract"

Open Markets Legal Director Sandeep Vaheesan asserts that fine print isn’t “voluntary” and we should overhaul our thinking about contractual agreements. In this piece for Current Affairs, Vaheesan explores how we are subject to a dense web of contracts that grant us—or (more often) deprive us of—rights. He argues that against corporate power, Congress must wield its power to ban abusive contractual provisions.

Read More
Op-EdsSandeep Vaheesan2019, August 2019, Labor, Sandeep Vaheesan
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