A Distinctly Biden Doctrine: Corporate Concentration Violates Worker Rights

Today on TAP: His disparate government agencies have come together to make this case.

BY HAROLD MEYERSON AUGUST 29, 2024

There are, I don’t doubt, any number of Econ 101 classes whose textbooks say that the interests of consumers and workers are necessarily counterposed. When workers get a raise, the increased costs get passed on to consumers; that’s just the way of the world.

This narrative is complicated, of course, by the fact that virtually all workers are also consumers, and that the vast majority of consumers are either workers or members of workers’ families (though knowledge of this nuance may require taking Econ 202 or, alternatively, living in the real world). In recent decades, this narrative has also been complicated by the fact that the level of corporate concentration and the growth of monopolies and monopsonies have reached the point that the typical worker/consumer is disadvantaged in both of those identities.

The federal government has long had departments and agencies established to protect the interest of workers and consumers. The Federal Trade Commission was established in 1914; the National Labor Relations Board in 1935; the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice in 1919; and the Department of Labor in 1913. But it’s only in the last two years, confronted with proposed mergers that would damage the interests of both workers and consumers, that all four of these agencies have begun working together to oppose such combinations. And since it’s now timely to discuss President Biden’s legacy, it’s clear that it’s been his appointees to all those agencies and departments who deserve a great deal of credit for tackling many of the problems of monopolized capitalism.

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