The Curse of Bigness
Antitrust in the New Gilded Age
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4.4 • 5 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From the man who coined the term "net neutrality," comes a warning about the dangers of excessive corporate and industrial concentration for our economic and political future.
We live in an age of extreme corporate concentration, in which global industries are controlled by just a few giant firms—big banks, big pharma, and big tech, just to name a few. But concern over what Louis Brandeis called the "curse of bigness" can no longer remain the province of specialist lawyers and economists, for it has spilled over into policy and politics, even threatening democracy itself. History suggests that tolerance of inequality and failing to control excessive corporate power may prompt the rise of populism, nationalism, extremist politicians, and fascist regimes. In short, as Wu warns, we are in grave danger of repeating the signature errors of the twentieth century.
In The Curse of Bigness, Tim Wu explains how figures like Brandeis and Theodore Roosevelt first confronted the democratic threats posed by the great trusts of the Gilded Age—but the lessons of the Progressive Era were forgotten in the last 40 years. He calls for recovering the lost tenets of the trustbusting age as part of a broader revival of American progressive ideas as we confront the fallout of persistent and extreme economic inequality.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this short but persuasive book, Wu (The Attention Merchants), a Columbia law professor, connects the current political climate to a decline in antitrust enforcement. From the rise of U.S. Steel and Standard Oil through the "trust-busting" days of Teddy Roosevelt, Wu shows how antitrust laws, as championed by Louis Brandeis (who coined the term "the curse of bigness"), once functioned as a check on private power. In the modern era, however, enforcement has steadily declined; the George W. Bush administration did not bring a single antitrust action in eight years. The results, Wu argues, are a widening income gap and corporations subverting electoral politics. In the 20th century, he writes, "nations that failed to control private power and attend to the needs of their citizens faced the rise of strongmen who promised a more immediate deliverance from economic woes." The book's brevity is an asset Wu skillfully avoids economic and legal rabbit holes, keeping the book laser-focused on his thesis: that antitrust enforcement must be restored "as a check on power as necessary in a functioning democracy before it's too late." Persuasive and brilliantly written, the book is especially timely given the rise of trillion-dollar tech companies.
