Anti-Monopoly Laws Were a Crazy Liberal Idea

[Donnachaidh]

http://politicalloudmouth.com/anti-monopoly-laws-were-a-crazy-liberal-idea/

It was a time of considerable anxiety for many ordinary Americans. As the economy whip-sawed from prosperity to ruin, a few individuals just got richer and richer by controlling huge corporations that seemed to run, not just the economy, but the entire nation through the superior access that their large fortunes bought them to public officials.

The year? You guess 2011? Try 1890.

That was the year in which Congress passed the Sherman Anti-trust Act, the nation’s first major legislation to prevent the creation of monopolies, still in effect today, and the basis for federal review of mergers and acquisitions among large corporations, such as AT&T’s purchase of T-Mobile. Substantially amended during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson with the Clayton Anti-Trust Act, the Sherman Act reflects a fundamental piece of wisdom that is as relevant today as it was then: that very large concentrations of economic power threaten everyone else’s freedom, such that it is entirely reasonable to use the power of government to prevent such concentrations.

Everyone knows that “big government” is the enemy of freedom, right?

More at the link --

[Zorra]

1. Jefferson, the ultimate American liberal, wanted to put anti-monopoly laws in the Constitution.

He was correct about so many things.

[Uncle Joe]

2. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Donnachaidh.

[andym]

3. Explains why Corporatists ultimate plan is small government

because the power they had in the good old small government days before Sherman/Clayton Anti-Trust, Pure Food and Drug Act, Securities and Exchange Act was far greater than what they could expect from trying to obtain goodies from a corrupt big government. Grover Norquist and his successors in the Tea Party are working hard to catalyze the end of big government for "freedom's sake,"-- the freedom of corporations to return to the days of the robber barons. One exception to the call for small government will be the MIC, since the military is necessary to protect their gains. So there will still be opportunity for old-time big government corruption in the dystopia of small government which they wish to create.

[dkf]

4. Why has the left completely ignored this?

Is anyone in congress speaking up on the At&t merger?