After a century of resisting monopolies, Democrats became the party of finance capitalism and it cost them the election

It would be good if Warren would openly endorse candidates in the Dem. primaries, in order to help weed out the wolves in sheep clothing, and have those candidates follow Bernies campaign finance style.

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Comey’s last minute surprise
Russian hacking/influence
Racism
Clinton was a terrible candidate
Clinton actually WON
Rising insurance costs fueled an anti-ACA sentiment
Sexism
White working class resentment
"Drain the swamp"
Too many morons voting
(<–actual reason)
Third party candidates split the vote
Bernie Bros undermined support/enthusiasm for Clinton
Voter disgust at Sanders’ treatment by the Democratic establishment
Low Democratic turnout
America’s fascination with tv celebrities
Fake news

Democrats became the party of finance capitalism

Whew, glad that’s finally resolved!

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Ah, but counterfactuals like this are an easy way to feel virtuous and avoid having to get involved in the grubby realities of politics, where compromise is a constant companion.

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33 posts were split to a new topic: Voter rights

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I agree for a number of reasons, but it seems to me the Democrats’ resistance to monopolies has been pretty weak for quite a lot longer than that.

Based on the history of non-incumbent Democrats winning the White House, it’s too late in the sense that Bernie is too old, by a lot.

Somebody who is under 50 today would be ideal.

Heh. :slight_smile: Speaking a little more seriously, I do think that the Democratic party was derailed on this subject, by competing arguments involving skills premiums and capital-biased technological change. Monopoly power came to be viewed as something only Marxists cared about, and so antitrust enforcement became a joke, starting with Clinton. I first noticed this becoming a subject of discussion a few years ago, in a number of Krugman columns, including this one:

As many economists have lately been pointing out, these days the old story about rising inequality, in which it was driven by a growing premium on skill, has lost whatever relevance it may have had. Since around 2000, the big story has, instead, been one of a sharp shift in the distribution of income away from wages in general, and toward profits. But here’s the puzzle: Since profits are high while borrowing costs are low, why aren’t we seeing a boom in business investment? And, no, investment isn’t depressed because President Obama has hurt the feelings of business leaders or because they’re terrified by the prospect of universal health insurance.

Well, there’s no puzzle here if rising profits reflect rents, not returns on investment. A monopolist can, after all, be highly profitable yet see no good reason to expand its productive capacity.

www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/opinion/krugman-profits-without-production.html

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The atlantic ran a story on this a few months ago

probably part of a themed issue, but I only saw the one article.

… With key intellectuals in the Democratic Party increasingly agreeing with Republican thought leaders on the virtues of corporate concentration, the political economic debate changed drastically. Henceforth, the economic leadership of the two parties would increasingly argue not over whether concentrations of wealth were threats to democracy or to the economy, but over whether concentrations of wealth would be centrally directed through the public sector or managed through the private sector—a big-government redistributionist party versus a small-government libertarian party. Democrats and Republicans disagreed on the purpose of concentrated power, but everyone agreed on its inevitability. By the late 1970s, the populist Brandeisian anti-monopoly tradition—protecting communities by breaking up concentrations of power—had been air-brushed out of the debate. And in doing so, America’s fundamental political vision transformed: from protecting citizen sovereignty to maximizing consumer welfare.

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Interesting column. I’ve never understood why a monopoly has ever been considered good, in a country where “the market rules” and “competition!” I can’t list the number of places where I see one product made by one company, and a competing product made by the same damn company. The latest I noticed was baking powder of all things. I was comparing brands and noticed that Clabber Girl baking powder is made by Clabbergirl Corporation. Rumford baking powder is also made by the same company. They were the only two brands that were on the shelf in the grocery store. And it turns out Fleischmann’s and Royal are two more brands owned by them. WTF?

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Based on the turnout state by state in (edit)2008, 2012, and 2016, my prediction is that the Democratic party has nominated its last white Presidential candidate.

Uh, you sure that’s the example you want to use? Microsoft pretty much kept on with the bad behavior, and it wasn’t long before they lost their monopoly anyway.

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This is derivative. Justin Green did a panel strip in the eighties in which he depicted Reagan as eating a rat in public in a similar manner.

But, who cares really. Just memories of an old goat.

They just deny that monopolies exist.

In your example, if there is more than one agricultural-product company in the world, then it’s not a monopoly. Problem solved.

So we have to bring up the subject again in a more complicated way, and regular people’s eyes glaze over, and meanwhile His Unfitness says something outrageous every 10 minutes.

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I’ve never understood why a monopoly has ever been considered good, in a country where “the market rules” and “competition!”

Natural monopolies (roads, water works, legal system, prisons, navies, wildlife refuges, etc.) are sovereign functions which respond badly to privatization. Private monopolies under-supply and over-price as a profit-maximizing imperative.

The thing is, a small number of competitors (an oligopoly) have a similar dynamic to monopoly, but on a curve. Between 2 and 10 competitors produce noticably abusive effects on quality, supply, service, and price. It isn’t always explicit collusion, but the market power and competition produce a competition to abuse a market as much as possible. Consolidation and reduction of n results.

n = 1 is ideal for maximum theft from a market, but politically, significant economic profit with n ~= 6 can be sucked out of a market to shareholders. Look at any consumer market. If n suppliers breaks 10 in any market but labor supply… start looking for the franchise fees.

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Hmm…And then we should add in the way that the increasing economic mingling of the economies of the West have led to increasing links in the politics of the West. Multinational companies pursue multinational policy interests. I think that I have been looking at US politics through too limited a lens, without accounting for the international influence on domestic policies both here and abroad.

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Wow, worse than I thought. Can you give a reference for this? Always good to learn more.

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Really? Wasn’t the AT&T antitrust case started and settled under Republican administrations? And the Sherman Anti Trust act, that was under Republicans as well. The American Tobacco Co. case was under the Republicans and the same with the Standard Oil Co and Northern Securities Co cases. Wasn’t Teddy Roosevelt the “Trust Buster” and a Republican?
I’m not a partisan myself so I’m not here to support or bash either party. I just wonder where the idea that the Democratic party is or ever was the anti-monopoly party, especially if you go back as far as 100 years.

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Big Dereg began under Carter, but you tell yourself what you want, I guess.

It’s true that Trump won thanks in large part to disheartened Middle Americans who got the same promises from both parties over the last four decades—better jobs, better education, sensible healthcare, etc—and received nil to palpable, hateful degradation in all three realms… and it didn’t matter which candidate they backed. That’s true at the local and state levels for the swing voters that won Trump his presidency, and on the national level, well… there’s never been more prole-screwing neoliberalism in history, and again, doesn’t matter which party they were from.

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Well deregulation worked pretty well for customers* when they did it in the airline business. That was the poster child for deregulation under the Carter administration. Partly because they deregulated prices and routes by getting rid of the CAB but left the FAA regulating safety alone.

*Flights are much cheaper, but planes and airports are much more crowded. Flying has become much more common for the middle class, but because that market is more price-sensitive, they really pack people in these days.