Adam Smith himself warned against the power of monopolists and rentiers—specifically the kinds of power conglomerates focused on here. Thank you for being one of the voices showing clearly that there is no true “free” market at play here.
As Gary Stevenson notes on his YouTubr channel Gary’s Economics, the argument that if we raise taxes on the super rich, they will just take their wealth elsewhere is totally bogus when their wealth is our homes and our grocery stores. They can’t move those assets overseas. It’s entirely possible to regulate and to tax them. And as Grace Blakeley argues in Vulture Capitalism, the “free” market is actually more planned than any planned economy through collusion between capitalists and capital and governments.
I have two kids in their 20’s and the world they are supposed to be launching into is just brutal. My 21 year old disabled son literally is up all night anxious about how he’s supposed to survive as an adult in this economy.
Great take and on point as ever. The problem I always end up with in this conversation is just how little corporations, CEOs, and Boards have changed over the last 100 years despite the alleged changes that were made to reel in the likes of robber barons. The same companies as built company towns and fire bombed striking workers still exist today, their investors of the time still pulling revenue and the successive generations of executives learning only how not to get caught like those prior.
We live in the same era of exploitation and degradation as we have since the idea of the West as a political sphere of influence was first penned. The same people who allowed literal Nazis into some of highest offices of government and academia across the entirety of the post-WW2 world are those who backed up coal operators at Blair Mountain and turned a blind eye to the Daughters of the Confederacy.
I was going to point out that IBM never stopped doing business in Germany during WWII and some of the companies that became today's multinational corporations increased their wealth using slave labor from concentration camps during same. We are seeing business get rich off of technology that harms us with no pushback and little media coverage. Israeli companies test surveillance products and weapons on Palestinian civilians they then sell to police departments and the military to use on us. Until there is a desire for change with real pressure brought to bear on our governments none of this will end or change. Neither major party is interested in reducing the elevation of shareholder profits over the interests of the majority of their constituents.
As these monopolists make affording the most necessities unaffordable, surely that impacts discretionary spending on entertainment and luxuries. Where is the backlash? Are they satisfied selling to only those wealthy enough not to feel the effects of the rise in the cost of living? We need intervention from the government that created this crisis through mega-mergers and Citizens United. Also, I will point out as a writer on climate change, inflation and increased homelessness is likely the future. There are greater forces on the horizon than age-old greed.
Let's hope Live Nation/Ticketmaster is only the first scalp in a massive federal correction. That monster is pretty much the definition of a nonessential good being prohibitively priced simply to grow profits at the expense of customers and creators.
I've lived in several countries with government controlled economies, or as I like to think of them: imprisoned economies The government owned everything. They were great because we spent almost no money since there was almost nothing to buy. Need flour? Maybe next month. Need toothpaste? Good. We have two aisles lined with one brand of Bulgarian toothpaste one box deep and end to end. Need car tires? Hahaha. Your wife needs an epidural during a difficult child birth? Tough it out, sweety. Want to leave for greener pastures? Fine, but you can't take any of your stuff with you, including your hundreds of trillions of Z$. Its like the Hotel California.
At least there were no greedy capitalists. Our beloved President for Life made sure of that. When he died after 37 years in office serving the people, he had $10 billion stashed away, in US$ of course. I had hundreds of trillions of Zimbabwe dollars. but there was nothing to buy with them, other than a loaf of bread occasionally for $10 trillion, if they had it. Give me an imprisoned economy any day over a free market. They are so much more predictable.
Reading your post I was wondering the reason for such unethical greed. Do these businessmen lack that inner feeling we all have when something goes against the most basic social justice? How can they be so evil to get even richer with our most basic needs?
They are crazed with greed, it would seem. They are cancer cells in the body politic, contorting and sickening everything with which they come into contact. The remedy is taxation.
More taxes yes...but how do we stop this cancer from metastasising? How do we re-educate them to stop worshipping the money god above all else? Perhaps we should also avoid incentives, bonuses for double digit growth? How do we change the behaviour of corporations? Can we, or will we all die for them?
I honestly don’t think they can be changed. They will behave as they always have, history shows; the recourse civil society has is the law and regulatory authority.
Properly corralled, the impulses of profit-seekers can do incredible things; but they simply cannot be relied upon to police themselves. Their instinct is always to take more and more.
The choice to move beyond the predatory stage (naked capitalism) of our collective development redounds on each of us individually. Hopefully enough of us will make that choice in time, but meanwhile it has to be assumed that if left unconstrained, profit-seekers will literally destroy the capacity of earth to accommodate human life rather than modulate their conduct. We can accept that that’s our collective fate, that capitalism is all we have - a world historical lie that has embedded itself in the minds of so many, or we can summon the spirit of Dwight D. Eisenhower, FDR and MLK, among many others, and put up the kinds of guardrails that will vindicate and protect the future of humanity.
I've studied business economics and came out of my BSc sick of the system. But many studied it to learn how to play the game. I was naive enough to be surprised by the game itself.
The upper ranks therefore knows how to play the game and decided to win. That's the whole reason they started particularly.
Some on the lower levels are probably caught in the system, unable to see a way out of a system that is set up to be inescapable. So they decided to at least get good at it.
Others are just that depraved.
And then there is the majority that believes the neoliberal propaganda that the losers of the game had it coming for them, so there is no need to feel remorse.
I know, because for a period of time during university I got caught in the neoliberal bullshit, too.
The inner logic works surprisingly well. Only if you rattle the base assumptions it starts to fall apart.
Kroger is just bad beyond measure. They are so bad that for years they've refused to sign the Fair Food Pledge (neither has Albertsons that I can find) something that even Walmart managed to be able to get on board with. Publix also refuses to sign as well.
This is why I get frustrated with my more libertarian leaning friends when they talk about wanting the government to step back and 'let the free market work.' These are people who want many of the same things I want, but are somehow unable to recognize that the free market has never in the history of ever just somehow magically decided on its own that maybe 8 year old shouldn't run machines with sharp knives, or people should get a weekend, or that locking your employees inside a fire trap of a building is bad, actually. It has always taken the combined will of the people and might of the government, especially when dealing with the basics like food and shelter because we can't just boycott eating.
The free market worked for those it was intended to help all along, who profiteered at everyone else's expense for whom the free market failed but was purported to have helped when neoliberalism was ushered in.
Time to dismantle the whole system and rebuild it from the ground up. There is a reason there is fascism all over the world at present, the few at the top know the gig is up.
Your analysis is excellent and I appreciate the update on government investigations.
The pandemic and other natural and unnatural disasters (CIA coups) have often provided fertile ground for these events. After Hurricane Katrina in NOLA the vultures were there immediately, grabbing up resources and privatizing anything they could get their hands on. They privatized a large portion of “public” education, decreased teacher salaries driving many experienced teachers to go elsewhere. In Chile (I don’t remember the year) US installed Pinochet and Milton Friedman of Chicago School of Economics fame decided this would be a great opportunity to test free market economics and austerity (for the already living in austerity). The people would be so consumed with survival they wouldn’t be able to effectively protest. The people of Chile paid dearly for that experiment which wasn’t necessary as the result was always going to be sold as a success. All evidence to the contrary, international banking regulators still push austerity for countries struggling with debt (often accrued with the help of “economic hitmen”). Naomi Klein has many excellent books including one specifically about disaster capitalism - “The Shock Doctrine”.
Some other suggestions:
Thomas Picketty - Capital in the 21st century
Anand Giridharadas - Winner takes All
John Perkins - Confessions of an Economic Hitman
John Maynard Keynes - Essential Keynes
They speak as if the “free market” is something that exists in nature rather than the legal fiction that it is. I’m not an economist but I think the major flaw is that the “free market” is a creation by interested parties that then have almost complete control of the rules and regulations through lobbying and Citizens United campaign funding. It’s a rigged system. I welcome the FTC actions but I hope there’ll be systemic change as well, otherwise it’s bandaids on the titanic.
Such a good piece yet again. Just an addition for folks in Canada (or for folks in the US who wonder if its like this everywhere), we recently had a case where the major grocery chains in Canada created a "bread cartel" to fix and increase bread prices. That's right, for bread. It was so bad that it even has a wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_price-fixing_in_Canada . Needless to say, even though this particular price fixing measure was found out and they paid a fine, it doesn't touch the amount of profits they made by doing it. RealPage is also used in Canada (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/article-tenant-groups-call-for-scrutiny-of-american-software-company-after-us/), but we have our own RealPage competitor in Atlus Group.
Although there is a top-down element to price setting, we can't forget that it happens on a micro scale as well.
The cultural stories of success and advancement also make it required for individual actors to perform the profit-maximizing script.
These events happen on a wide network of consensus and chains of moral accountability. There is a duty to your fellow workers, leadership and organization, that out weighs the duty to the whole.
Unless this schema changes, shock events like the pandemic will create more of this behaviour as people within a social structure gather together for protection.
Unless we find a story of duty-to-the-whole that binds us with greater strength than duty-to-the-paycheck we'll have trouble making it the world that benefits the whole.
Adam Smith himself warned against the power of monopolists and rentiers—specifically the kinds of power conglomerates focused on here. Thank you for being one of the voices showing clearly that there is no true “free” market at play here.
As Gary Stevenson notes on his YouTubr channel Gary’s Economics, the argument that if we raise taxes on the super rich, they will just take their wealth elsewhere is totally bogus when their wealth is our homes and our grocery stores. They can’t move those assets overseas. It’s entirely possible to regulate and to tax them. And as Grace Blakeley argues in Vulture Capitalism, the “free” market is actually more planned than any planned economy through collusion between capitalists and capital and governments.
I have two kids in their 20’s and the world they are supposed to be launching into is just brutal. My 21 year old disabled son literally is up all night anxious about how he’s supposed to survive as an adult in this economy.
Great take and on point as ever. The problem I always end up with in this conversation is just how little corporations, CEOs, and Boards have changed over the last 100 years despite the alleged changes that were made to reel in the likes of robber barons. The same companies as built company towns and fire bombed striking workers still exist today, their investors of the time still pulling revenue and the successive generations of executives learning only how not to get caught like those prior.
We live in the same era of exploitation and degradation as we have since the idea of the West as a political sphere of influence was first penned. The same people who allowed literal Nazis into some of highest offices of government and academia across the entirety of the post-WW2 world are those who backed up coal operators at Blair Mountain and turned a blind eye to the Daughters of the Confederacy.
I was going to point out that IBM never stopped doing business in Germany during WWII and some of the companies that became today's multinational corporations increased their wealth using slave labor from concentration camps during same. We are seeing business get rich off of technology that harms us with no pushback and little media coverage. Israeli companies test surveillance products and weapons on Palestinian civilians they then sell to police departments and the military to use on us. Until there is a desire for change with real pressure brought to bear on our governments none of this will end or change. Neither major party is interested in reducing the elevation of shareholder profits over the interests of the majority of their constituents.
As these monopolists make affording the most necessities unaffordable, surely that impacts discretionary spending on entertainment and luxuries. Where is the backlash? Are they satisfied selling to only those wealthy enough not to feel the effects of the rise in the cost of living? We need intervention from the government that created this crisis through mega-mergers and Citizens United. Also, I will point out as a writer on climate change, inflation and increased homelessness is likely the future. There are greater forces on the horizon than age-old greed.
Let's hope Live Nation/Ticketmaster is only the first scalp in a massive federal correction. That monster is pretty much the definition of a nonessential good being prohibitively priced simply to grow profits at the expense of customers and creators.
I've lived in several countries with government controlled economies, or as I like to think of them: imprisoned economies The government owned everything. They were great because we spent almost no money since there was almost nothing to buy. Need flour? Maybe next month. Need toothpaste? Good. We have two aisles lined with one brand of Bulgarian toothpaste one box deep and end to end. Need car tires? Hahaha. Your wife needs an epidural during a difficult child birth? Tough it out, sweety. Want to leave for greener pastures? Fine, but you can't take any of your stuff with you, including your hundreds of trillions of Z$. Its like the Hotel California.
At least there were no greedy capitalists. Our beloved President for Life made sure of that. When he died after 37 years in office serving the people, he had $10 billion stashed away, in US$ of course. I had hundreds of trillions of Zimbabwe dollars. but there was nothing to buy with them, other than a loaf of bread occasionally for $10 trillion, if they had it. Give me an imprisoned economy any day over a free market. They are so much more predictable.
What about the RICO act , surely this market collusion falls under the guise of running a criminal organization by now.
Reading your post I was wondering the reason for such unethical greed. Do these businessmen lack that inner feeling we all have when something goes against the most basic social justice? How can they be so evil to get even richer with our most basic needs?
They are crazed with greed, it would seem. They are cancer cells in the body politic, contorting and sickening everything with which they come into contact. The remedy is taxation.
More taxes yes...but how do we stop this cancer from metastasising? How do we re-educate them to stop worshipping the money god above all else? Perhaps we should also avoid incentives, bonuses for double digit growth? How do we change the behaviour of corporations? Can we, or will we all die for them?
I honestly don’t think they can be changed. They will behave as they always have, history shows; the recourse civil society has is the law and regulatory authority.
Properly corralled, the impulses of profit-seekers can do incredible things; but they simply cannot be relied upon to police themselves. Their instinct is always to take more and more.
The choice to move beyond the predatory stage (naked capitalism) of our collective development redounds on each of us individually. Hopefully enough of us will make that choice in time, but meanwhile it has to be assumed that if left unconstrained, profit-seekers will literally destroy the capacity of earth to accommodate human life rather than modulate their conduct. We can accept that that’s our collective fate, that capitalism is all we have - a world historical lie that has embedded itself in the minds of so many, or we can summon the spirit of Dwight D. Eisenhower, FDR and MLK, among many others, and put up the kinds of guardrails that will vindicate and protect the future of humanity.
I honestly believe the majority of them are sociopaths. Jon Ronson mentions this in "The Psychopath Test" and it's a pretty convincing case
I've studied business economics and came out of my BSc sick of the system. But many studied it to learn how to play the game. I was naive enough to be surprised by the game itself.
The upper ranks therefore knows how to play the game and decided to win. That's the whole reason they started particularly.
Some on the lower levels are probably caught in the system, unable to see a way out of a system that is set up to be inescapable. So they decided to at least get good at it.
Others are just that depraved.
And then there is the majority that believes the neoliberal propaganda that the losers of the game had it coming for them, so there is no need to feel remorse.
I know, because for a period of time during university I got caught in the neoliberal bullshit, too.
The inner logic works surprisingly well. Only if you rattle the base assumptions it starts to fall apart.
Simple, Irene. You only feel guilt if you acknowledge the humanity of those you fleece. Exploiting your inferiors has a long and storied history!
Kroger is just bad beyond measure. They are so bad that for years they've refused to sign the Fair Food Pledge (neither has Albertsons that I can find) something that even Walmart managed to be able to get on board with. Publix also refuses to sign as well.
https://fairfoodprogram.org/about/
This is why I get frustrated with my more libertarian leaning friends when they talk about wanting the government to step back and 'let the free market work.' These are people who want many of the same things I want, but are somehow unable to recognize that the free market has never in the history of ever just somehow magically decided on its own that maybe 8 year old shouldn't run machines with sharp knives, or people should get a weekend, or that locking your employees inside a fire trap of a building is bad, actually. It has always taken the combined will of the people and might of the government, especially when dealing with the basics like food and shelter because we can't just boycott eating.
The free market worked for those it was intended to help all along, who profiteered at everyone else's expense for whom the free market failed but was purported to have helped when neoliberalism was ushered in.
Time to dismantle the whole system and rebuild it from the ground up. There is a reason there is fascism all over the world at present, the few at the top know the gig is up.
Your analysis is excellent and I appreciate the update on government investigations.
The pandemic and other natural and unnatural disasters (CIA coups) have often provided fertile ground for these events. After Hurricane Katrina in NOLA the vultures were there immediately, grabbing up resources and privatizing anything they could get their hands on. They privatized a large portion of “public” education, decreased teacher salaries driving many experienced teachers to go elsewhere. In Chile (I don’t remember the year) US installed Pinochet and Milton Friedman of Chicago School of Economics fame decided this would be a great opportunity to test free market economics and austerity (for the already living in austerity). The people would be so consumed with survival they wouldn’t be able to effectively protest. The people of Chile paid dearly for that experiment which wasn’t necessary as the result was always going to be sold as a success. All evidence to the contrary, international banking regulators still push austerity for countries struggling with debt (often accrued with the help of “economic hitmen”). Naomi Klein has many excellent books including one specifically about disaster capitalism - “The Shock Doctrine”.
Some other suggestions:
Thomas Picketty - Capital in the 21st century
Anand Giridharadas - Winner takes All
John Perkins - Confessions of an Economic Hitman
John Maynard Keynes - Essential Keynes
They speak as if the “free market” is something that exists in nature rather than the legal fiction that it is. I’m not an economist but I think the major flaw is that the “free market” is a creation by interested parties that then have almost complete control of the rules and regulations through lobbying and Citizens United campaign funding. It’s a rigged system. I welcome the FTC actions but I hope there’ll be systemic change as well, otherwise it’s bandaids on the titanic.
Again, thanks for all the information.
Such a good piece yet again. Just an addition for folks in Canada (or for folks in the US who wonder if its like this everywhere), we recently had a case where the major grocery chains in Canada created a "bread cartel" to fix and increase bread prices. That's right, for bread. It was so bad that it even has a wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_price-fixing_in_Canada . Needless to say, even though this particular price fixing measure was found out and they paid a fine, it doesn't touch the amount of profits they made by doing it. RealPage is also used in Canada (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/article-tenant-groups-call-for-scrutiny-of-american-software-company-after-us/), but we have our own RealPage competitor in Atlus Group.
Although there is a top-down element to price setting, we can't forget that it happens on a micro scale as well.
The cultural stories of success and advancement also make it required for individual actors to perform the profit-maximizing script.
These events happen on a wide network of consensus and chains of moral accountability. There is a duty to your fellow workers, leadership and organization, that out weighs the duty to the whole.
Unless this schema changes, shock events like the pandemic will create more of this behaviour as people within a social structure gather together for protection.
Unless we find a story of duty-to-the-whole that binds us with greater strength than duty-to-the-paycheck we'll have trouble making it the world that benefits the whole.
yes… ‘greedflation’.
“greed is never enough”