America!
I remember growing up and hearing about how the brash independence of your average American refused to be monopolized by big business. When John D. Rockefeller built Standard Oil to control 90% of oil production in America, the government swept in in 1911 and broke it up.
When AT&T controlled all of the local phone services in the 1980s and refused to connect competitors to their long distance network, the government brought a case which ultimately led to the breakup of AT&T.
So why has this media consolidation been allowed to take place in a country that’s purportedly so fiercely independent? Last June, in an interview with Michael Kades, director of markets and competition policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, an NGO based in Washington, D.C., we got a glimpse at the answer.
Kades: “Maybe the most famous antitrust case people know about is the breakup of the AT&T monopoly in the ’80s. AT&T owned all the local phone companies and long-distance phone companies. They would not connect any long-distance competitor to the local exchange; they just refused to deal with these companies. The government brought a strong case and got a very good decision out of the courts and eventually AT&T agreed to a settlement. The company was broken up, and nobody thinks that was a bad thing. The reason we have the internet, mobile communications, can all be traced to this.
However, it’s no longer clear that the legal theory in that case — that the refusal to deal was illegal — would hold up in court. There are some courts that would reject it. If you’re in a position where it’s not clear that the most important monopoly case arguably in the history of antitrust law would have a solid, merits-based argument anymore, it kind of tells you there’s something wrong.
However, it’s no longer clear that the legal theory in that case — that the refusal to deal was illegal — would hold up in court. There are some courts that would reject it. If you’re in a position where it’s not clear that the most important monopoly case arguably in the history of antitrust law would have a solid, merits-based argument anymore, it kind of tells you there’s something wrong.
-Michael Kades, The Washington Center for Equitable Growth
Ah, yes. In our brave new world of “alternate facts” of course there are people who would fight to protect monopolies. It all goes back to that Gordon Gecko speech in Wall Street:
It isn’t good. It really, really isn’t good at all.
But here’s an infographic I found online that gives a scary overview to the Orwellian consolidation of media. It’s a bit dated, but looking around, I think you’ll agree that since 2011 things aren’t exactly heading in a better direction.
