[S13 E09] New
In this week's show, Prof. Wolff presents a critique of monopoly and oligopoly; past efforts and success in popular control over mega-corporations - in US and abroad; the fight back by mega-corporations to nullify reforms and regulations. Finally, some real solutions to the social problem and costs of an economy dominated by mega-corporations.
Timestamps
- 00:00 - 01:11 - Introduction
- 01:12 - 04:30 - Monopolies
- 04:31 - 05:08 - Oligopolies
- 05:09 - 07:15 - Unfair competition
- 07:16 - 08:54 - Vertical integration
- 08:55 - 10:01 - 19th 20th century responses to monopoly power
- 10:02 - 10:22 - Sherman Antitrust Act
- 10:23 - 11:00 - Clayton Antitrust act
- 11:01 - 11:27 - Govt breaks up AT&T
- 11:28 - 13:29 - Small Business Administration formation
- 13:30 - 13:59 - Regulatory Capture
- 14:00 - 15:21 - Announcements
- 15:22 - 18:21 - Utility and Insurance Commissions
- 18:22 - 20:07 - Small business response in France
- 20:08 - 21:10 - Germany's response 50% seats on Board by workers
- 21:11 - 29:46 - Solutions/Alternatives
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Showing 4 comments
Anyone willing to serve the public in a legislative capacity would take and pass what amounts to a civil service examination that evaluates a person’s competency to serve. The potential for qualified citizens to step forward would be dramatically increased IF all young persons were required to take a thorough program of civics education and government operation over a period of years (covering grades 7 thru 12).
Those who are willing to serve first take and pass this civil service examination, then their name is entered into the lottery from which legislators are selected to serve one term in office after which they return to their private life.
Gone would be the dominating importance of political parties. Gone would be political campaigns that drag on for a year or longer. Gone would be the influence of those with the financial means to fund political campaigns. Here for the first time in our history would be something approaching participatory democracy.
It’s not that corporations are no longer accountable to its citizenry. They have NEVER been accountable. Nor should they be. They are accountable to their share holders and their customers. That’s it…and the way it is supposed to be. Only government should be accountable to its citizenry. I do agree that is no longer (if ever) the case. The citizenry in the U.S. has always been either too ignorant, too lazy, and too apathetic (or any combination of the three) to demand it.
The professor also talks of reigning in Big Corp. Right. There is no way folks will demand anything of a private corporation. These corporations do not have to listen to anybody but board members. The irony of his “lesson” is that these mega corporations are so inherently unprofitable at this point that they have had to buy government influence in order to get bail out funding on a regular basis in order to continue to operate. To these corporations, these continuous bailouts are pulled from the backs of future earnings of U.S. workers (and thus, taxes) and represent the core of their guaranteed profits.This guaranteed income stream comes in the form of “quantitative easing”, “Inflation Reduction Acts”, Economic Recovery Acts", etc. The bottom line is the fiat currency (AKA economic crack supply) pipeline has to end. The $31.6T federal net operation debt is costing the U.S. tax payer over a billion dollars a day to finance. That is way more than any single corporation is costing the U.S. citizen. The answer to this insanity is a demand for the passage of a federal balanced budget amendment. Now. I believe Big Corp would then quickly die on the grapevine.
Why the professor continues to ignore this bigger picture with his grade school economic lessons is a mystery to me. Or is it?