- Zephyr Teachout teaches law at Fordham University, and is a political activist who campaigned for New York attorney general in 2018. She was endorsed by Bernie Sanders, the New York Times, and many others. Sanders wrote the Introduction to this just released book.
- The book is well written and an unapologetic polemic against the enormous power of mega-corporations in the US and globally, particularly Facebook, Amazon and Google.
- She is persuasive at times, although far too frequently way over the top. Her summaries of how Big Tech operates are too negative for my liking. The obviously bad and even appalling aspects of their operations are outlined in detail but they are all she focuses on. The sweeping demolition is her shtick. The positives never get a look in. To me Google Search, for example, is one of the greatest inventions of the last 100 years. And, personally, I don't mind being 'targeted' for advertising. We're being bombarded anyway, and have been all our lives.
- She also displays a fair bit of commercial naïveté. Amazon taking 35% commission from third party traders she castigates as 'excessive'. As any retailer in the physical world would know it certainly isn’t. As for its favouring suppliers who also advertise on its site - welcome to the real world. She also completely misrepresents Amazon’s legitimate pushback a few years ago against publishers Hachette and Macmillan over their anti-consumer ebook pricing controls.
- Teachout also makes some outrageous claims: Zuckerberg still holds more power over the 2020 elections than any person in the country...Bezos is still consolidating power over all consumer goods sales in the country while dreaming of life in space...Google has a poisonous business model...It's a privately owned Big Brother...Facebook and Google have deliberately, radically poisoned the way we read and the way we relate to one another...they are Mafia-like rivals to public government.
- The book is far more persuasive when she delves into the realities of political power - the increasing power of big corporations through the confected process of private dispute 'arbitration', rather than public court cases; the enormously well funded Super PACS that back party candidates that match their business interests; huge trade associations and their intense lobbying.
- Monopolisation has grown aggressively since the 1980s and is a cancer. Monopoly turns out to be a major driver of inequality...Private corporations with too much power raise prices for consumers, depress wages for workers, choke off democracy, and regulate all of us....corporate government will lead to tyranny...the laws against ‘predatory pricing’ are not being enforced.
- Consumers who engage in personal boycotts (‘ethical consumerism’) are virtually powerless in monopolised economies. Radical political action is the only way.
- That I certainly agree with.
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