Our fifth class begins our focus on power — and on the relative weakness of workers and the relative power of big corporations. Just double-click below, and you’re in the class.

Background: It’s one of the oldest struggles inside the American economy and within capitalism worldwide: between labor and capital. And it has a direct effect on inequality.

The way we’ll approach it today is by looking at two sides of the same coin: antitrust laws designed to contain the market power of corporations, and labor laws designed to allow workers to organize.

Both sets of laws have been changed over the last 40 years — giving corporations greater market power, and dramatically reducing the power of organized labor. We’ll examine why these changes have occurred.

Questions: What happened to antitrust in the United States over the last 50 years? What happened to labor unions? Why are antitrust (anti-monopoly) laws stronger in Europe than they are in the United States? Why is a higher percent of the European (and Canadian) workforces unionized than in the United States? What’s the relationship between degrees of monopolization, levels of unionization, and inequality, and why?

Readings for you —

On organized labor:

• Louis Uchitelle, “How the Loss of Union Power Has Hurt American Manufacturing,” The New York Times, April 20, 2018

• Steven Greenhouse, “How Walmart Persuades Its Workers Not to Organize,” The Atlantic, June 8, 2015

• David Madland, “Wage Boards for American Workers,” Center for American Progress, April 9, 2018

On monopolization:

• John Cassidy, “The Biden Antitrust Revolution,” The New Yorker, July 12, 2021

• Kate Bahn, “McDonalds, monopsony, and the need for joint employer standards,” Washington Center for Equitable Growth, April 5, 2018

• Peter Thiel, “Competition is for Losers,” The Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2014

• David Dayen, “Special Investigation: The Dirty Secret Behind Warren Buffett’s Billions,” The Nation, February 15, 2018

• Dipayan Ghosh, “Don’t Break Up Facebook — Treat It Like a Utility,” Harvard Business Review, May 30, 2019