Break 'Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money

by Zephyr Teachout, Bernie Sanders (Foreword by)

Overview

"[We need] a grassroots, bottom-up movement that understands the challenge in front of us, and then organizes against monopoly power in communities across this country. This book is a blueprint for that organizing. In these pages, you will learn how monopolies and oligopolies have taken over almost every aspect of American life, and you will also learn about what can be done to stop that trend before it is too late."

—From the foreword by Bernie Sanders.

A passionate attack on the monopolies that are throttling American democracy.

Every facet of American life is being overtaken by big platform monopolists like Facebook, Google, and Bayer (which has merged with the former agricultural giant Monsanto), resulting in a greater concentration of wealth and power than we've seen since the Gilded Age. They are evolving into political entities that often have more influence than the actual government, bending state and federal legislatures to their will and even creating arbitration courts that circumvent the US justice system. How can we recover our freedom from these giants? Anti-corruption scholar and activist Zephyr Teachout has the answer: Break 'Em Up.

This book is a clarion call for liberals and leftists looking to find a common cause. Teachout makes a compelling case that monopolies are the root cause of many of the issues that today's progressives care about; they drive economic inequality, harm the planet, limit the political power of average citizens, and historically-disenfranchised groups bear the brunt of their shameful and irresponsible business practices. In order to build a better future, we must eradicate monopolies from the private sector and create new safeguards that prevent new ones from seizing power.

Through her expert analysis of monopolies in several sectors and their impact on courts, journalism, inequality, and politics, Teachout offers a concrete path toward thwarting these enemies of working Americans and reclaiming our democracy before it’s too late.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250200891
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/28/2020
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

ZEPHYR TEACHOUT is an attorney, political activist, and anti-trust and corruption expert. A rising star on the left, her campaign for New York Attorney General in 2018 was endorsed by Bernie Sanders, the New York Times, and others. She was part of the team of lawyers that sued Donald Trump for allegedly violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution. Teachout sits on the board of directors of the Open Markets Institute, and teaches law at Fordham University. She lives in Clinton, NY.

BERNIE SANDERS was a Democratic candidate for President of the United States. He is serving his third term in the U.S. Senate. Sanders previously served as mayor of Vermont’s largest city for eight years before defeating an incumbent Republican to be the sole congressperson for the state in the U.S. House of Representatives. He lives in Burlington, Vermont with his wife Jane and has four children and seven grandchildren.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Bernie Sanders

Introduction

1. The Chickenization of the American Middle Class

2. Big Tech’s Governmental Ambitions

3. Oh, Journalism Was Murdered? Too Bad!

4. Replacing Justice with Power

5. The Body Snatchers

6. Race and Monopoly Power

7. The Wage Mystery

8. The Money Power

9. No, You Don’t Have to Quit Facebook

10. We Have the Tools

11. Nationalize or Decentralize? Big Pharma and the Green New Deal

12. Moral Markets

Epilogue: 2040

Editorial Reviews

Teachout, a dogged scholar, lays out a comprehensive list of damage done to American consumers by monopolized industries like Big Pharma, fossil fuels, Silicon Valley, health insurance, banking and communications giants from Verizon to Facebook and Google. She provides example after example of how these companies limit consumer choice and suppress regulation.

The New York Times Book Review - Jeff Madrick

★ 03/02/2020

Attorney and political activist Teachout (Corruption in America) makes a passionate and persuasive case for a revitalized antitrust movement to strengthen democracy and improve the lives of middle- and working-class Americans. Explaining that three large poultry processors buy and sell nearly every chicken in the U.S., allowing them to set restrictive, exploitative terms on contract farmers, Teachout forecasts the “chickenization” of the American economy. Companies like Seamless and Uber, she writes, centralize power, profit, data, and decision-making while decentralizing labor and risk. She critiques Amazon, Facebook, and Google for destroying competition; building an advertising model that fosters “surveillance, discrimination, and addiction”; and imperiling the free press. Other corporations come under fire for mandating private arbitration to settle lawsuits, “taking over” political parties and trade associations, and abetting the suppression of the minority vote. Teachout’s suggestions for reform include restoring stringent antitrust measures in place before the 1980s and overhauling the Communications Decency Act. Teachout delivers a forceful, clearly articulated vision of “moral markets” built on freedom, choice, and human dignity. Progressives will heed this clarion call for reform. Agent: Gail Ross, the Ross Yoon Agency. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Break ‘Em Up is a shocking guide book to these corporate Dark Ages, these frightening times when private power seems to grow ever more centralized and the ordinary world we live in feels like it is dissolving. Thankfully, it is also a road map to the exit. Read it and let’s get ourselves out of this awful place.” —Thomas Frank, author of Listen, Liberal

“Zephyr Teachout is a prophet of the resurgent left. With polemical zeal and elegant prose she diagnoses the great economic illness of our time—and shows how a cure is within our reach. This is the essential manifesto for the rejuvenation of American democracy.” —Franklin Foer, author of World Without Mind

"Bracing; powerful and inspiring. Teachout, in this riveting read, demonstrates that private power is simply power, and limiting its abuse is essential to human thriving." —Tim Wu, author of The Curse of Bigness

“A passionate and persuasive case for a revitalized antitrust movement to strengthen democracy and improve the lives of middle- and working-class Americans…Teachout delivers a forceful, clearly articulated vision of ‘moral markets’ built on freedom, choice, and human dignity. Progressives will heed this clarion call for reform.” —Publishers Weekly (starred)

“A graceful, witty, terrifying book—essential to understanding how monopoly threatens American democracy. Teachout was one of the first to grasp the magnitude of the crisis of concentrated private power in America, and she now drives the debate forward again. Break 'Em Up will challenge all easy assumptions about how to fix our nation, in ways that will arm you for the fight ahead.” —Barry C. Lynn, author of Liberty from All Masters

“Wide-ranging, well-organized chapters are full of unsettling tidbits … Teachout confidently wields energetic, urgent prose and stark research, adeptly blending subtopics including law and technology. Deserves wide attention in our current political landscape.” —Kirkus

From the Publisher

2020-02-17
A forceful argument about the stealthy resurgence of monopoly within the global economy.

Teachout, a law professor at Fordham University, redirects progressive attention toward this easily overlooked issue. “Wall Street,” she writes, “has been a driving force behind the gutting of antitrust laws.” The purported democratic norms of the tech economy have clouded such predatory business practices in many aspects of life, from the effect of Uber on drivers’ livelihoods, to less obvious but chilling examples—e.g., how poultry monopolies have turned farmers into indentured servants. “Uber successfully sold the idea that, if we wanted to use our phones to get a taxi, we needed to destroy 80 years of anti-monopoly laws,” writes Teachout. Furthermore, the “chickenization” model is creeping into many industries, especially restaurant delivery: “Surveillance and power go hand in hand, each reinforcing the other.” Race and class inform many of these hidden narratives: In one chapter, the author tracks how arbitration has become an alternate justice system serving the ultrawealthy. She also discusses the “body snatcher” effect of corporate super PACs on the political system: “corporate institutions replacing democratic institutions by burrowing inside them and using their language and forms.” Similarly, the journalism industry has been gutted by greedy corporate raiders and their continued search for quarterly profit increases. Regarding the secretive CEOs of social media, Teachout writes, “it is crucial that we understand [Mark] Zuckerberg, and monopolists like him, as seekers of political power, for it is only through political action that they can be tamed.” Wide-ranging, well-organized chapters are full of unsettling tidbits, such as Amazon’s courting of the surveillance state via commercial data-sharing. Finally, the author looks back at the original populist antitrust movement, but she also makes the salient point that “we shouldn’t require people to boycott essential communications infrastructure like Facebook and Google in order to demand that they be broken up.” Teachout confidently wields energetic, urgent prose and stark research, adeptly blending subtopics including law and technology.

Deserves wide attention in our current political landscape.

Kirkus Reviews