White House Chronicle

News Analysis With a Sense of Humor

  • Home
  • King’s Commentaries
  • Random Features
  • Photos
  • Public Speaker
  • WHC Episodes
  • About WHC
  • Carrying Stations
  • ME/CFS Alert
  • Contact Us

The Singular Threat of the New Monopolies

May 7, 2010 by White House Chronicle 1 Comment

They’re not your grandfather’s monopolies. They’re not Standard Oil or Western Union or General Motors. But they’re monopolies, scads of them, nonetheless, restricting competition and thrusting their hands in your pockets.

In his new book, “Cornered: The New Monopoly, Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction,” Barry Lynn, a journalist and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, lays out the case against the new monopolies and their role in stifling competition across the globe.

Where once monopoly watchers worried about steel, oil, electricity, primary goods and services, Lynn points out that the new monopolies are doing their thing — cutting competition, reducing choice and manipulating the market — in almost every business, affecting every aspect of our lives.

The old primary gang has become irrelevant as monopolies have sprung up in arenas where natural competition once reigned. The heavy hand of monopoly is dimming our choice.

Lynn cites the disturbing fact that 70 percent of the milk sold in New England is marketed by Dean Dairies; different labels on the bottles or cartons, same company. The same goes for bottled water; many labels, two principal suppliers: the Coca-Cola Company and Pepsico.

Book publishing is in the thrall of two retailers: Wal-Mart and Amazon. It was once as much an art as a business with dedicated publishers, nursing geniuses into print and history. Now unknown writers are at a great disadvantage as the publishers try to confine their lists to proven names.

Chain stores are another bedeviling monopoly. They destroy small businesses as they spread across the country. For every Target, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, CVS, McDonald’s and Starbucks, there are other entrepreneurial dreams dashed.

Bigness helps bigness. Big shopping center developers bring in big chains. Once, Lynn points out, every city proudly had its indigenous department store. Now it has chain stores.

Throughout the early part of the 20th century, antitrust law and practice looked at the impact of mergers and a reduction in competition. It fought against elephantine companies as being not in the public interest.

Enter Ronald Reagan and a philosophy that sought only to see the impact of mergers on consumer prices. Wal-Mart is the poster child for these arguments. So long as it appeared that consumers were getting a good deal, consolidation was not an anti-trust violation.

At first, according to Lynn, the new monopolies do reduce prices — until it is safe to raise them. Witness the banks.

Consumer prices also tell very little about the health of a society, its optimism and sense of possibility.

Chain stores bring dead-end service jobs. Monopolies are stifling possibility for millions and, incidentally, killing innovation.

Politicians, foundations, chambers of commerce and the free enterprise crowd all blow kisses at small business, but they get between the sheets with the monopolists. It’s cozy that way. –For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate



 

Email, RSS Follow
Email

Filed Under: King's Commentaries Tagged With: Barry Lynn, capitalism, monopolies

Comments

  1. Mary Lou Lindquist says

    May 16, 2010 at 6:11 pm

    BRavo on this program! I’ve treasured whcronicle for years w/o commenting except to other intelligent friends, but this time, you hit the nail on MY head! I, too, have mourned the disappearance of “the local hardware store,” to use that as a metaphor. I thought it was just my own myopia that recognized the extinction of truly small businesses (including mine, a sole practitioner as a licensed clinical social worker — in an old building in a not-so-svelte area of Alexandria, Virginia). I have been boycotting Walmart for years and years and have withstood criticism for my behavior from family and others who just can’t understand what good it does me… missing the point altogether. I’ve been telling people, “Ever since Ronald Reagan ….” Kudos to Mr. Lynn. I hope he gets that book put on CDs and finds someone to make a movie based on his vision. In the meantime, I will continue to survive as a teeny tiny businesswoman as long as I can stand the trickle-down from the health “insurance” monopolies who keep 2/3 of my rather low service fee. Thanks and keep it coming as long as you can — take care of your health, as we need you! Mr. Lynn, too!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

White House Chronicle on Social

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Vimeo
  • YouTube
How Will We Dress Post-COVID Now That Comfort Is In?

How Will We Dress Post-COVID Now That Comfort Is In?

Llewellyn King

There is a lot of chat about the future of work: Will we do it at home, or will we revert to commuting to the old traditional workplace? But there is an additional, different question: What will we wear? Go to the mirror and look at yourself. Except for the odd Zoom meeting you might […]

Texas Today, Who and Where Tomorrow? Action Needed

Texas Today, Who and Where Tomorrow? Action Needed

Llewellyn King

The horror of the Texas electricity catastrophe should chill the whole country. Nothing strikes at the survivability of a modern society more than the failure of its power supply, maybe nothing at all. When the power supply fails, the failure of human life is not far behind. Yet, at a time when we should expect […]

Edison’s Birthday Is a Busy Time for His Follow-on Inventors

Edison’s Birthday Is a Busy Time for His Follow-on Inventors

Llewellyn King

The electric utility industry looks a bit like a man on a ladder with one foot seeking the rung below, unsure of where it is. But find it he must. The industry is beset with technological change as well as social and political pressures. It isn’t in crisis, but it is in dramatic transition. It […]

Social Media and the Mob Factor

Social Media and the Mob Factor

Llewellyn King

Social media has an unimagined, unequaled, uncontrollable, and unpredictable ability to mobilize groups of people for antisocial action; to take a sliver of society and turn it into a mob. Last month this new force in society was on display, from mobilizing anti-vaxxers in Los Angeles to the U.S. Capitol riot, resulting in five deaths, […]

Copyright © 2021 · White House Chronicle Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in