Sally hubbard thank you for coming on to discuss monopolies suck it is timely because the issue you write about in the book with us economy and the impact on workers and citizens is a hot topic at the moment with policymaking right now and it could play a big and the Incoming Biden Administration so i thought we should look at the big picture you lay out in the book when people hear the title no one likes monopolies are dealing with monopolies but really this book is about a bigger issue that the economy people may not fully understand. s so can you set the scene and describe what you see happening . Thank you for taking the time to talk out the book in cspan2 have me talk about it as well. We all knowonopolies suck. Thats not a surprise to anyone but what has been happening the last several decades is t economy is getting highly concentrated with consolidation that leads to every major sectoof the economy. We hear about whether techr food in the industry all have monopoly problems talking about do our police and oligopolies over aew coanies because basically theres less competition with only a few players and those that flow from this post to help them understandhat it means for their everyday life and what they experience on a daily basis. So it is as you write about across the economy like the Table Service for the Tech Companies like in healthcare. Can you talk about how we got to this point as you explain in the book the evolution of economic thinking around competition or how we got to this point in the economy . The antitrust laws have been around for a very long time and i was back in 1898 and we have some pretty good antitrust enforcement in a decentralized economy for a large part of our history after the first gilded age and then it started to get rolled back around the early eighties with the rise of the Chicago Schools economics known as neoliberalism and a takeover of antitrust law. So with the open markets making sure the markets are functioning freely really to say only care about that corporations are efficient they were pass these efficiencies on to consumers so thats deciding if they are violating antitrust law or if they are behaving in the competitive manner. So does that lead to lower prices and unfortunately all the years later we found the focus is not lead to lower prices for consumers but has justified every behavior and acquisition and the corporations become machines by becoming bigger and bigger but nobody is benefiting from it the only super sizing of the corporation that are the shareholders. Thats how we got where we are is the courts adopt this thinking and to roll back the way the antitrust laws a being enforced at the ccago school took over a lot of thinkingven during the democratic administration. So there is a bit of a counter revolution going on taken over in the last year. You have a number of books about this issue so in your book of course can youxplain a little about ts pus back . Because i think in the last three or four years there has been a real push back created with momentum. Thats right all of these authors are small but mighty some articles recently claim that they have to give credit to the organization where i work now i have been at this for a long time i believe 2005 this book called end of the line predicting we would have shortages with the pandemic in violation of the supplychain so first it was that new america criticizing google now is partly funded by google and they been at it for a better part of the decade and finally more people can see the problems weve been seeing for a long time so with the antitrust enforcer is after i left to show the Current System is not working in the economy is becoming so highly consolidated in antitrust enforcement has gone missing and then the movement is getting bigger every day. Butith 30 years of evidence to show the writing on the wall is pretty clear. This has been written about in popular books with mainstream media. Wh you think this counter revolution has been successful . I think its been successful becse you cant ignore the problems anymore and the harm of having that consolidated economy are so grea and people are struggling and figuring out how do we fix the economy right now . But then to have more wealth than the bottom 80 percent of america and then to make a living is so much harder than it used to be in that we have other harms with the democratic process like the election or freedom of speech and the cost of healthcare so many have come out to allow corporations in those markets to be no longer competitive we see to be successful you cant ignore the evidence at this point and that is too complicated to do anything about it and i always say im confident we can get it working again the current course is not sustainable so i really think its a matter of when. Not if so trying to make it happen sooner. People understand so they can rise up to start pressuring the government to do its job with other antitrust laws to have open competitive markets again. This is an issue taken up by progressive activists. And Elizabeth Warren as a candidate for president talked about the need and she said its important to break up the companies. And at the time that was pretty radical for a president ial candidate to be talking about antitrust and advocating for the breakup of the company but you talk about how antitrust is something very much on the mind of politicians but it seems that changed became something very apolitical. Can you talk about the history and why in the last few decades it disappeared from the political conversation . The main reason why it disappeared we are talking about before involves the take over the Chicago School of economics is that of making sure we had fair competition and the power which it was intended for, but talk about experts in the complicated analysis and to be overly complex and no average person could talk about it there was a deliberate complication of antitrust law it made it much harder to prevail against any corporation as the antitrust enforcer to sue a corporation a multi year long multimillion dollar effort. It was the Corporate Power to make it complicated and impossible for the burden and that was the strategy in favor of Corporate Power and it really does belong to the people in passing the sherman act in 1898 and with commerce and trade so it really is an issue of democracy and Corporate Power and the first round the proper parents we had in this country it was a Citizen Movement standard oil was a monopoly on the scale of what we had today. But it ruled all the markets and controlled the political system and made it impossible to overcome standard oil and to do investigative reporting to expose all of this and with those articles it actually caused a Popular Uprising and that there are all these wonderful cartoons trying to show the monopoly power with these images and those that rose up with standard oil and with those anti competitive murders so i really believe citizens must be involved will not overcome unless we have the engaged citizenry because the concentrated power translates to political power. The only way to overcome and then to ensure we have that we are not ruled. And then take the time to exain the real enforcement in this country and it is not the decision is de very openly and congress and with the rime and so ople understand. And what enforcers what the job is with those antitrust enforcers the department of justice. They have their own antitrust laws and the power to enforce the federal laws with the clayton act i mentioned before. And with that distinction and with the enforcement thing to do and when large corporations notify the federal agencies and there is a fair amount of time that would be quickly to take a deeper look at a second request to what the deal go through it with a second request to do interviews or what not and fortunately to say to investigate this anti competitive they have to win. And the judges abide in so strongly and we saw that recently with a lawsuit against the t mobile merger the been straightforward when you are talking about that and then shown to be billions of dollars and with those consumers and they had declined to block the deal. Antitrust enforcers we will find out about that because someone complains to them into investigate for example the treatment of the thirdparty marketplace sellers. And then they have to decide because the laws have been so narrowed legal precedent will turn to in those cases especially with religion so can we win in court . With thats anticompetitive conduct. And so the answer to that is no and then to be more willing to lose want to make those antitrust laws. That is the process it is opaque is not much for the average citizens to do they are confidential but it becomes much mo transparent process. If you think is its important to be more polical than it has been, how do you see Going Forward ishere anything you can do to have a voice . You talk about those investigations over aear there is no pronouncement from the agencies and it goes for the monopolization investigation when they happen. Doesnt seem to be much of a role for cizens to have a voice. Right . I think citizens have the whole reason is to leteople know ery day when you cannot pay your bills andou struggle and the other half of america the whole reasoi want people to know they can get involved. But it may not be at the agency level and to reform the antitrt laws. For people representative and in the House Judiciary Committee to endeavor to do an indept investigation and propose all kinds of reforms, that takea lot of bravery and we need to have his back. We need to support those lawmakers willing to stand up because it is tens of millions of dollars of money eouraging them to not do that so if Congress Changes some of these decisions and makes clear we want it to functionhere are simple rules that do not take ten years and dont require these economic fees and then we can start to see real change. That is jus one part of the citizens to play. I wanted to talk about some of the recent developments because as youve explained the Justice Department through google in a monopolization case that was the first major monopoly case in 20 years in a long time sot seems that may mae the enforcers are changin and becoming more aggressive. It was a big deal. Its seems somewhanarrow in scope and its getting at the tip of the iceberg. Gole has eight products with ov a billion users and constantly pulling levers for competition so the first complaint is getting at a fraction of th behavior but its still critically important under section two and like you said that was a long time ago. I was in law school. [laughter] older than that now. Its a big, big deal that we turn that corner only at the beginning of what we are going to see coming against google and we have the state attorneys generals adding to the case will so it is a huge deal. Why is it it took 20 years and facebook is newer of course so how do you explain if they are such a problem why would we go 20 years without a case against a big company . The judges made it diffilt and those are the ones that go after the monopolization you have more tn one company that have agreed. When i was working as an antitrust enforcer most went to these cases because they were easy to winn court. When theyve agreed to the prices, then its automatically ilgal and you went to court. You haveimited resources and theres enough violations going on so section two was the prrity and the other thing was for th last several decades there were merger reviews but the monopoly law got lower and ey arraigned it in and really narrowed it so thats one o the main reasons. Th other thing is with these big Tech Companies operating under the consumer welfare standard and we let the corporations get big and the nsumers benefit that was a lot of the ideology behind it and so the standard is the consume welfarstandard and they seem like they e free and it was muchasier to fly under the radar than tsay there was a company gouging. Then it did well with the consumer welfaretandards after the comnies because this is how we got away with it for so longhen in reality as i explained in the book there are so many other ways but the currency is our data and if you have a competitive market crisis online thats a reason they work so long without seeing the enforcement because they were offering free sources and optimizing the consumer welfare. It wasnt about the consumers. But at the same time, people would say it is a Great Service and a great Search Engine but doj wakes up and hurt the market and it is an example of how big tech can explain what the Justice Department is alleging. But the Justice Department is alleging what happened going at this quickly is that microsoft had a monopoly on the computer operating system and 95 of market share so it told the computer makers if you want to sell with the microsoft operating system then you have to install our app, our software browser so it basically made it to that netscape navigator. Always ask yourself is this competing based on the merit to be the best or muscle to make sure they dont even have a shot. We are going to make sure they dont even have a shot if they hadnt accepted the terms the netscape navigator and the first thing about this we havent put the case against microsoft and doing the same thing when it came to the Search Engine and everyone got our browser if it were not for microsoft you couldnt even have google today so that is the irony. Google learned from microsoft and it told them you want the operating system theres no other remote option out there. Then you need to take all that and any other that could have been a competitor couldnt have a tremendous market share worldwide they mak this point a lot easier to download these days and i rember back in the days of microsoft goingo the ste and downloading a competitor they said we could choose others. It was just that everyone was choosing gooe why wouldnt they spend the money to make sure so its kind of a loser argument in my opinion and so its not just competing on the merits but making re no one on the outside had a chance to complete. While the Justice Department, ftc may be waking up, theres ts also action in congress recently from the antitrust subcommittee in the house and you mentioned it briefly that is also significant in the sense that i dont know when the last Time Congress took up antitrust in that way so maybe you could talk about what that committee did in the last year and what they will be possibly doing in the next congress. The work of the committee the last 16 months is truly amazing and historic and the kind of thing congress should be doing all the time but hasnt done in a very long time. It restores my faith in democracy and the elected officials were willing to take on the Corporate Power in this way and the influence of money on politics for the corporations is a rare sight in my adult life so its a truly wonderful thing to see and i was honored that they invited me to testify the monopoly power and Digital Advertising on the journalism industry and then i testified at the last hearing looking at the solutions for moving forward and they revealed millions of documents hours and hours of interviews to tell her story and they created a 450 page report. So for anyone who doubts that these companies have been used in an anticompetitive way theres 450 pages, but its not just that these companies are on top. Theyve taken their muscle and made sure that others dont get a chance to complete. Thats not legal under the antitrust law so im very optimistic at the proposal that the representative has put forth. The reports will start being included in the legislation, and im hopeful that we will be able to make some real reform in terms of the antitrust law encouraging things like interoperability and entrepreneurs can be compatible with some of these infrastructure that these Companies Control in the nondiscrimination rules and the Net Neutrality for every one that has to deal with these companies and every Major Business so its not just about strengthening the antitrust law but incredibly wonderful to see the historic turning point right now in our democracy and regarding the platform. It describes them as gatekeepers in the economy the other conduct with the recommendation to go beyond just tech and the conversation about the focus on prices and reports recommendations to rewrite or throw out that framework and consider a broad set of considerations like Small Businesses and that sort of thing. I dont know if that will go anywhere, but do you see it as something, a blueprint or whatever that could change enforcement more significantly . Definitely. Some of those changes could impact every sector of the economy going back to what its supposed to be about which is promoting competition and a lot of the harm that flows from this will go away, so if there is a kind of difference of saying we are going to consider all these other factors in our analysis or the way that i look at it as once we start informing as intended which is to promote competition, we will get all of these other benefits, so workers will benefit because workers are better off when they have many different possible and lawyers to choose from. I have a chapter in the book about how wages has been depressed and how the workers and employees have tak a smalleand smaller share of the productivity and the value that theyreate as the economy has gotten more and more consolidated and the Bargaining Power is so much less and theres only a few main competitorin each sector. Weave seen the wage stagnation and the antimonopoly has a huge part of that. And thenaybe you are an entrepreneurith opportunities to compete because you are blocked out of so manyr you are squashed if you challge a donant company. So, you know, all of these benefits for the workers and entrepreneurship and concentrating speec to me they all flow from and ens