>> Excited to welcome back to the program host of the Thom Hartmann Program, and author
of a great many books, the latest,The Hidden History of Monopolies, how big business destroyed
the American dream. Thom Hartmann, welcome to the Damage Report.
>> John, it's great to be back with you.
Thanks for having me. >> It's great to have you back on, I've been
trying to do a little bit of writing during the pandemic but I'm not putting out books
nearly at the rate that you are. So we've broken down a few of your past books on the
program.
This is obviously an incredibly important one. What made you choose to turn to the topic
of monopolies and the history of those? >> Well, when I first suggested to BK, Berret-Koehler,
the publisher of these books back, I don't know a couple years ago. That we do a series
of relatively small books, books that could be read in a weekend, or even in a day if
somebody really wanted to commit some time to it.
They're about a half or a third the length of a normal book. And the suggestion was let's
pick a whole series of topics, and when we're all done, the books can be put side to side,
you'd have basically a history of America in a whole bunch of different areas.
And we wanted to pick out the things that we thought were having the greatest and most
consequential impact on the quality of life in our country. So we started with guns in
the Second Amendment, from there we went to the United States Supreme Court and the ways
that they have basically been screwing America aggressively since the 1970s.
And what can be done about it. And then from there, we wrote this last book which you and
I talked about about the hidden history of the Republican war on voting. And we're reading
that right now. And then monopolies, the average American family is paying about $5,000 a year,
every year, in what I call a monopoly tax.
Is not actually a tax, it's higher prices that we're paying because of monopolies, in
Internet for example. Most developed countries offer a high quality, a high speed Internet,
typically one gigabyte up and down. South Korea Japan, Taiwan, most of Europe, for 20
to $35 a month. Here in the United States, it costs more than twice that and the quality
sucks.
Why? Because we have basically a small handful of companies that control the Internet-
>> Wow. >> For our country. That's just one small
example. You add up all these examples, from pharmaceuticals, to hospitals to the food
services, to hotel, I mean picking industry, they're all monopolized airlines. And the
average American family is paying $5,000 a year more than they should.
Just because of this monopoly situation in America.
>> That is absolutely amazing, a significant chunk of their entire income. It's great example
you provided. I mean, my Internet is at least five times that average that you that you
talked about. That's hugely consequential. And of course, I wanted us to focus on we
have we have talked about the history of this, how we got to this place, how monopolies interact
with and influence governments.
But for a lot of people, I think it might be very easy to think of monopolies as a thing
of a past time in America. That surely that's not something that we need to deal with. But
I would say even in the time that you're writing this book, I mean, there have to be a lot
of new concerns about certain sorts of monopolies developing.
In the tech industry, social media we have a lot of conversations as a country about
those sorts of things. So what are some more of the ways that monopolies influence outcomes
for American consumers and workers? >> Well, first off, as companies get bigger
and bigger, and gain more and more dominance over there industries.
In addition along with that size and wealth comes political power. An airline as large
as United or American can easily buy hundreds of members of Congress with basically their
entertainment budget, with chump change for example. And do so in any state and the union
as well. So in number one our entire political process has been corrupted by these monopolies.
Whether it's the Facebook monopoly, or whether it's the airline oligopoly. Most industries,
it's not a true monopoly, it's an oligopoly. That is to say it's two to five companies
that control more than 80% of the industry, all the economic activity. And they function
as a monopoly though. If United raises their prices ten bucks, within five minutes, Delta
will have raised its prices ten bucks on the same route, so they all monitor each other.
So it functionally work together as a monopoly. So this is one of the big problems, back in
the 60s, in the early 60s, and talk to somebody my age who will enthusiastically tell you
about this. There was this really cool TV show in the late 50s, early 60s called Route
66.
And Martin Milner and George Maharrs, were driving this Corvette from basically New York
to Los Angeles. This is before the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System was completed. And
the only way to get from coast to coast was on Route 66, which was the most was a two-lane
road all the way across America, it went through all these thousands of little towns.
And every week they'd be in another little town, and they'd have an adventure. And you
could always tell where they were, if they were in Biloxi Mississippi, there was the
Biloxi diner, and the Biloxi bank, and the Biloxi hotel. And they were all locally owned
businesses and Jacobson's furniture and Sam's dry cleaners.
And businesses that have been passed down and families for generations, all of that
is gone. If you were to drop out of an airplane from 60,000 feet and just landed in any random
part of America today, you would have no frigging idea where you are. Because it's the same
Olive Garden, and Holiday Inn, and Marriott and McDonald's, and Wells Fargo or.
And yeah, and the result of this isn't just the homogenization of America's business culture.
I mean, that's bad enough. But that's more of an aesthetic concern. The real concern
is that it's no longer possible or at least as easy as it was prior to the Reagan era,
prior to the 1980s where all this changed.
It's no longer possible to start a small business. It's no longer possible to hang on to a small
business, it's no longer possible to have a family business. You can't compete with
giant companies. When Walmart moves into a neighborhood, they wipe out on average 140
local businesses. And those local business, and it's not just Walmart obviously, those
local businesses are just being devastated.
And then of course now we've got COVID on top putting this on steroids. So we need to
be breaking up these big companies, and we need to go back to enforcing the laws that
were passed in the 1880s. To stop this from happening in order to basically restore vibrancy
and health to our economic system, to our economic landscape.
>> I guess this is sort of one of the natural troubles potentially of writing history books
that are deeply tied into what's going on right now. That you talked about, the war
on voting. And now you have, I mean, you could do an entire book on the last six months leading
up to this election.
In the same way, when you talk about monopolies, you mentioned that obviously, that's interacting
with the pandemic. I mean, people can't go to the vast majority of places that are selling
products. And I would imagine that many people are probably relying on things like Target,
and ordering things from Amazon.
Do you think that is that a temporary thing? Do we in a year, will we be basically back
to the position we were in, or is this just going to throw gasoline on the sort of thing
that you're talking about? >> It already has. There are different estimates
being offered by different people.
But the general consensus seems to be that at least a quarter of the small and medium
sized businesses that have been shuttered since March will never return. And of course
the big businesses, the giant monopolistic corporations, they've all been bailed out.
They've gotten trillions of dollars out of Congress, and now they're getting out of the
fed.
The fed has created out of thin air $7 trillion, one third of the entire country's GDP. And
they're using it to buy corporate bonds. So there was to loan corporations money at basically
no interest, and buy stock to support the stock market. And I'm concerned frankly that
if Joe Biden wins the election, the day that's announced, the head of the Fed Jerome Powell
who is the first Fed Chair in a long, long time, who is not an economist.
He's actually a former Managing Director of the Carlyle Group, the big banking group,
some defense companies. That's how he became a multi-millionaire. And his BA is in politics
not in economics, his degree, his college degree. And I'm concerned that the day that
Joe Biden gets announced as the winner of the election, Powell will say, okay, that's
it we're no longer gonna buy stocks and bonds.
Which by the way the fed has never done in its history, and there's a whole body of law
they're suggesting it's a crime what he is doing. That it's goes way beyond their legal
purview, that he'll just say that's it we're gonna take our $7 trillion and go home.
And the market will immediately crash. And everybody will say, it's because the Democrats
got elected. I mean, get ready. >> Now, well, surely the media will make sure
that people understand what really happened. >> Yeah, of course.
>> Anyway, yeah, that's absolutely ridiculous. Okay, so what you're talking about is obviously
scary.
I mean some of it obviously we get an idea of the consolidation of these companies and
things like that. But the idea that on top of everything else bad that's going on in
2020, that that might be accelerating that trend is certainly scary. So is this an inevitability?
Everyday we move another step towards a cyberpunk future of corporations that not only control
all trade, but government as well. Or are there reasons to believe potentially in the
experience of other countries, that this is not necessarily a one way street that we're
traveling down? >> We are the only developed country in the
world that does not enforce anti-monopoly laws.
In fact, most of the pressure for Facebook, for example, to break up or divest itself
with things like Instagram is coming from Europe. And the big challenges to Google and
Amazon are coming out of Europe. So what's gonna happen in America as we go into the
future is anybody's guess.
Historically though, you look at the eruptions of anti-monopoly furor, or fervor, or both.
One was in the 1890s in response to John Rockefeller, that was the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Clayton
Antitrust Act was in the 1930s. Again in response to actually the banking steel and oil monopolies
were reforming.
And then in the 1950s, the Antitrust Act of I think was 1956. And in 1982, or 83, Ronald
Reagan ordered the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the
Commerce Department, to stop enforcing those three laws. And nobody has turned them back
on yet. But they're still on the books.
And so I think at a certain point, Americans are going to say, okay, we're tired of being
screwed. We're tired of being screwed, I don't know how to say it.
>> Yeah. >> And so bring it back. And I'm seeing that,
I'm seeing more and more books coming out about this, I'm seeing more and more articles.
I think if we have a Democratic administration and an overwhelming number of Democrats in
the House in Senate at the federal level, you're gonna start seeing action on this.
It really is the thing that has most damaged workers ability to have any say in the workplace,
the quality of life for consumers.
I mean we pay more than twice for drugs what not any of the developed country in the world
does, for example, it's because of the drug monopolies. So I mean people are starting
to figure it out. >> I certainly hope so, because you've done
a great job of demonstrating how consequential this is.
I mean I was talking with with a friend of mine about, I'm personally very interested
in history. And unfortunately a lot of history can feel very divorced from what we're experiencing.
But I think that one of the great things about your series is that it is entirely connected
to what's going on.
And many of the challenges that your history flushes out all challenges that we're still
currently facing. So hopefully people will take a look and learn quite a bit about where
we might go from here. The book is The Hidden History of Monopolies, how big business destroyed
the American dream.
Tom Hartmann, As always, thank you so much for joining us.
>> Thank you, John. Thanks so much for having me.