Waubonsee Community College

Antitrust, taking on monopoly power from the Gilded Age to the digital age, Amy Klobuchar

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 361-566) and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Antitrust

bibliography

1200038593

Amy Klobuchar

taking on monopoly power from the Gilded Age to the digital age

"An exploration of antitrust laws and their enforcement, and of the importance of antitrust for the American people"--, Provided by publisherFrom the senior senator from Minnesota, former candidate for president of the United States, and chair of the U.S. Senate's Antitrust Subcommittee: an important, urgently needed book that shows how antitrust laws once saved the country from robber barons and oil tycoons and how, more than one hundred years later, in the era of Big Tech and unprecendented corporate consolidation, they can--and must--do it again. Amy Klobuchar tells the story of America's fight against monopolies and lays out a clear path forward to protect people from today's megamergers and monopoly pricing. From the Founding Fathers to the present, Antitrust recounts how our country's antimonopoly fervor led to the Boston Tea Party, the midwestern farmers' Granger movement, union organizing and the Haymarket Massacre and Pullman Strike, the rise of Teddy Roosevelt and William Jennings Bryan, and the muckraking investigative reporting that led to the dissolution of the Standard Oil Trust. In this timely, compelling history and call to action, Senator Klobuchar writes about the passage of the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts and the lower long-distance rates and cell phone innovations resulting from the breakup of AT&T. She describes how strong antitrust laws can foster new businesses and reduce discrimination and income inequality. She examines Big Pharma's price-gouging of medications from EpiPens to insulin and explores the immense power of tech giants Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. Putting today's challenges in historical context, Senator Klobuchar makes clear the urgency of commonsense competition policy at this crucial moment in time when so many small businesses are struggling to survive. She argues for modernizing our country's laws, reinvigorating antitrust enforcement, and reforming America's policies to protect the middle class and the health of the U.S. economy. She discusses anticompetitive deals like AT&T-Time Warner, Facebook's acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp, and T-Mobile's purchase of Sprint. She writes of media consolidation and how a marketplace with few players, or in which a single company dominates as an industry gatekeeper, hurts consumers and stifles innovation and entrepreneurship. Her book is a human, personal story as well. She tells of her own family--she's the granddaughter of an iron-ore miner on Minnesota's Iron Range, where railroad and steel industrialists built their empires. She writes of her battles against the insurance industry to guarantee new moms and their babies a minimum forty-eight-hour hospital stay, her fights in Congress to lower prescription drug prices, and taking on Big Tech companies to protect Americans from disinformation and anticompetitive conduct. With detailed suggestions for change in Washington, D.C., and at kitchen tables and workplaces throughout America, Antitrust is both a warning and a guide to the clear and present dangers posed by today's monopolies. This important and revelatory book shows why antitrust mattered a century ago and why it matters today--for our economy, for our democracy, for our well-being. --, From dust jacket

adult