Goliath
The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy
by Matt Stoller · first published 2019
64% recommend36% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Sweeping history of US antitrust and monopoly power, from the Standard Oil era through Reagan and Bork to today, tying past fights to current consolidation. Suits readers who want background on how we got here.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
A startling look at how concentrated financial power and consumerism transformed American politics, resulting in the emergence of populism and authoritarianism, the fall of the Democratic Party—while also providing the steps needed to create a new democracy. Americans once had a coherent and clear understanding of political tyranny, one crafted by Thomas Jefferson and updated for the industrial age by Louis Brandeis. A concentration of power, whether in the hands of a military dictator or a JP Morgan, was understood as autocratic and dangerous to individual liberty and democracy. This idea
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…well with The Social Dilemma for a documentary night. Mark Blyth is an economist with plenty of content on YouTube that touches on similar topics. For adjacent book recommendations I highly recommend Goliath by Matt Stoller on the subject of capital and monopoly power in the US over history.
on “Why inequality matters (2014)” ↗"Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy" by Matt Stoller
on “Ask HN: Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2021?” ↗>back when America enforced antitrust legislation on its own companies A great book about that era is "Goliath" by Matt Stoller.
on “EU suggests breaking up Google's ad business in preliminary antitrust ruling” ↗If you are interested in a book length version of this argument, I'd recommend Goliath by Matt Stoller: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Goliath/Matt-Stoller/...
on “Amazon Used Secret ‘Project Nessie’ Algorithm to Raise Prices” ↗…there is a large public appetite for breaking up monopolies, it really does seem that antitrust policy has sadly become something of a bygone era. A decent authority on the subject is Matt Stoller's book Goliath [1], which lays out the history of US monopolies and how they formed the bedrock for these modern tech companies. Their strategic dominance is no mistake. He argues that our era of monopoly power goes…
on “How Monopolists drive the power and wealth divide” ↗I highly recommend Matt Stoller's book 'Goliath' about the 100 year battle between US democracy and monopoly. Also his current newsletter 'big' which brings the book up to date for what is happening right now. https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/how-to-structure-the-coro... Forget…
on “Most airlines face bankruptcy by end of May, industry body warns” ↗You should read "Goliath" by Matt Stoller. In it he reviews the history of monopoly and how the US definition of it changed from the 1930s to the 1980s. Interesting historical read and it reinforced to me that both monopolies…
on “Apple buys a company every three to four weeks” ↗You may be interested in the book Goliath by Stoller: > Americans once had a coherent and clear understanding of political tyranny, one crafted by Thomas Jefferson and updated for the industrial age by Louis Brandeis. A concentration of power,…
on “Five Biggest Stocks Are 23% of S&P 500 Market Cap” ↗…concept of the dangers of market consolidation is new to you, although I'm skeptical. For readers seeking to know more about the ways monopoly power can be corrosive, try reading Matt Stoller[1]. His book Goliath was eye-opening for me. 0. https://theweek.com/articles/736059/what-beer-reveals-about-... 1. https://mattstoller.substack.com/about
on “Cory Doctorow's next book: Chokepoint Capitalism” ↗Matt Stoller puts this into context in his recent and excellent book “Goliath,” specifically the pro-monopoly, proto-fascist forces dominating America at the time. And of course, he brings this forward to the present, where we are currently contending with and suffering from monopolization.
on “The Basic Problem of Democracy (1919)” ↗…then manufacturers could dictate the price of their goods (laws protected that). So retailers competed on other dimensions (service, location) rather than price. I learned this (and a lot more) from "Goliath": https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Goliath/Matt-Stoller/...
on “Man who stockpiled hand sanitizer donates it all ahead of investigation” ↗A very interesting one that's helped me understand a lot right now is Goliath by Matt Stoller. He frames todays economy in a similar light as the 1920s. Very compelling and interesting.
on “Ask HN: What are you reading to make sense of the economy?” ↗Adding Stoller's 'Goliath" 100 years of monopoly vs democracy book. Highly recommend along with his substack and strongly agree with @rmrfstar https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Goliath/Matt-Stoller/...
on “Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends” ↗After reading Matt Stoller's book Goliath, I've come around on breaking up big companies like this, primarily as an act of undoing mergers and acquisitions that should never have been allowed in the first place. So splitting off YouTube seems…
on “Break Up Google” ↗I think we need to both break up and regulate them. We had a few decades of true antitrust, but the efforts to undermine it were successful. Check out Goliath by Matt Stoller for a decent history.
on “FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization” ↗