Just in time for #Davos, here’s 'Taken, not earned: How monopolists drive the world’s power and wealth divide," a report from a coalition of international tax justice and anti-corporate activist groups:
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If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
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When people talk about the billionaires’ climate impact, they o focus on the carbon footprints of mansions and private jets, but the true environmental cost of the ultra rich comes from the anti-renewables, pro-emissions lobbying they buy with their monopoly winnings.
The good news is that the tide is turning on monopolies. A coalition of “businesses, workers, farmers, consumers and other civil society groups” have created a “remarkably successful anti-monopoly movement.”
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The past three years saw more regulatory action on corporate mergers, price-gouging, predatory pricing, labor abuses and other evils of monopoly than we got in the past 40 years.
The business press - cheerleaders for monopoly - keep running editorials claiming that enforcers like #LinaKhan are getting nothing done. Sure, #WSJ, Khan’s getting nothing done - that’s why you ran 80 editorial about her:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion
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(Khan’s winning like crazy. Just last month she killed four megamergers:)
https://www.thesling.org/the-ftc-just-blocked-four-mergers-in-a-month-heres-how-its-latest-win-fits-into-the-broader-campaign-to-revive-antitrust/
The EU and UK are taking actions that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. Canada is finally set to get a real competition law, with the Trudeau government promising to add an “abuse of dominance” rule to Canada’s antitrust system.
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Even more exciting are the moves in the #GlobalSouth. In South Africa, “competition law contains some of the most progressive ideas of all”:
> It actively seeks to create greater economic participation, particularly for ‘historically disadvantaged persons’ as part of its public interest considerations in merger decisions.
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Balzac wrote, “Behind every great fortune there is a crime.” Chances are, the rapsheet includes an antitrust violation. Getting rid of monopolies won’t get rid of all the billionaires, but it’ll certainly get rid of a hell of a lot of them.
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I’m Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by #WilWheaton! Pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover. There’s also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback:
http://thebezzle.org
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