We are a group of journalists & scholars in policy & economics working at the vanguard of antimonopoly to achieve victories that empower everyone.
Washington, DC
Joined September 2017
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Open Markets Institute retweeted
This is something we’ve been hammering at Open Markets forever. The meaning of “moderate” and “centrist” need to be contested.
DC corporatism has no constituency, and is kept alive solely through legacy media and comms efforts backed by big money.
When the new Congress takes office in January, the question is: will this majority confront concentrated corporate power and technofascism – or simply oversee its continued expansion?
Democrats have a mandate for change, argues Dr. @CourtneyR 👇
techpolicy.press/voters-hand…
The Democrats just won an election in which they told voters that powerful corporations & massive monopolies were the problem.
The only way to deliver on that promise is to do the work of dismantling that system. libertyandpower.substack.com…
"CVS shouldn't get to decide what counts as an effective breakup. Policymakers need to ensure that it actually dismantles its power."
Important post from @stacyfmitchell @ilsr:
CVS says it's going to break itself up. After more than a decade of calls to separate its retail pharmacies from its PBM/insurance business, that's big news. But here's the thing: CVS's breakup has two major loopholes. Both are designed to preserve its power.
First, CVS Health would keep its specialty pharmacy business. These pharmacies dispense expensive, often complex medications. They account for 40+% of the pharmacy market by revenue. They're a major site of anticompetitive practices that squeeze independent pharmacies.
Second, CVS says the ties between the two new companies will be "preserved in commercial agreements." In other words, separate ownership, but keep the arrangements that create conflicts of interest and enable anticompetitive practices. A real (government-led) breakup would sever those ties.
CVS didn't arrive here all on its own. Tennessee and Arkansas passed laws forcing a breakup of vertically integrated pharmacy giants like CVS. CVS is fighting the laws in court. Senators Warren and Hawley have a federal bill. Antitrust scrutiny has grown, both at the state level and when @linamkhan ran the FTC.
Trying to sidestep these efforts is one motivation here.
But CVS also has business reasons to jettison its struggling retail stores. Amazon's growing pharmacy business is one. The perils of running an overbuilt retail chain when you haven't invested in workers is another. Anyone who's been inside a CVS lately knows these stores suck.
For more than a decade, I've been working with independent pharmacies and my colleagues here at @ilsr to expose the anticompetitive structures and practices that have driven so many local pharmacies out of business, and calling for a breakup of CVS.
But CVS shouldn't get to decide what counts as an effective breakup. Policymakers need to ensure that it actually dismantles its power.
"Populism isn’t just a path to power, it’s a promise to voters about what to do with it."
More from @BenBWinsor 👇
libertyandpower.substack.com…
Open Markets Institute retweeted
Since many members of Congress are looking for an affordability program, I'll immodestly re-up the essay @clairekelloway and I wrote for @DissentMag in September
- Stronger regulation of corporate pricing power
- Direct public provisioning of essentials
- Policies to raise wages
Most politicians say that they want to help people afford their lives, but what really matters is how. For @DissentMag, @sandeepvaheesan and I argue that any "affordability" agenda must challenge corporate pricing power, not worker power. dissentmagazine.org/online_a…
Open Markets Institute retweeted
Democrats took the House and Senate promising affordable groceries - how can they actually deliver?
Well, here's a list of *already introduced* legislation they could pass next year:
The Anti-Monopoly Midterms: Races We’re Watching libertyandpower.substack.com…
Google's message to schools: Accept our AI or lose access to Search.
This is textbook abuse of monopoly power: leveraging control over an essential gateway to information to force adoption of another product.
nytimes.com/2026/11/03/us/go…
Google controls Maps AND Waymo.
Amazon owns Zoox AND much of the cloud computing infrastructure robotaxis rely on.
Left unchecked, these companies will have massive control over AV transportation.
Our NEW Report:
openmarketsinstitute.org/pub…
Open Markets Institute retweeted
Election day is tomorrow! I wrote for @Barn_Raising about the importance of the very close MN Attorney General's race, which will have profound consequences for how Minnesota responds to both government and corporate bullying over the next four years.
“I’m extremely concerned about the harm that corporate consolidation and monopolies are having on farmers and rural communities generally throughout our state,” Ellison says in a statement to Barn Raiser.
barnraisingmedia.com/2026-el…
NEW REPORT: Robotaxi growth threatens to put the future of transportation under the control of just a few, already-dominant tech corporations.
Find coverage by @samjsutton in @politico's Decoded newsletter:
And read the full report here: openmarketsinstitute.org/pub…
In a new amicus brief in the OpenAI/Microsoft copyright infringement case, we argue that AI companies cannot hide behind a “fair use” defense when their products substitute for original reporting & undermine the market. 👇
We worked with our @openmarkets colleagues to file an amicus brief informing a critically important case for the future of copyright enforcement in AI.
Find it here: cmdg.tech/publications/amicu…
Open Markets Institute retweeted
@RepRaskin introduced an important piece of legislation to begin the process of making antitrust less susceptible to corruption. The bill proposes a number of common sense policies (listed below). Enacting this legislation should be a no-brainer.
democrats-judiciary.house.go…
Lula won reelection, but Brazil’s powerful agribusiness lobby could still threaten the Amazon. Just 5 firms control over half of Brazil’s soy exports; 3 dominate beef exports.
NEW: @clairekelloway examines how corporate power is shaping Brazil’s future: foodandpower.substack.com/p/…
Open Markets Institute retweeted
NEW: In a pre-emptive move, House Democrats have introduced a resolution that Congress should not bail out AI firms in the event of a financial crisis and should be subjected to the ordinary bankruptcy process.
prospect.org/2026/10/28/hous…
Open Markets Institute retweeted
Canada and Europe share a problem: their digital infrastructure depends on the same U.S. tech giants. Ahead of the Canada-EU Summit, CAMP and @openmarkets argue in for deeper competition enforcement, smarter procurement and room for alternatives: theglobeandmail.com/business…
Open Markets Institute retweeted
This is the exact thing we’ve been warning about for years… AI agents with unrestrained access to your bank account and protected information. When consumer AI agents are accessing YOUR bank account or using YOUR credit card, they must be subject to fiduciary-like duties of care. We need to pass my AI AGENTS Act to get some basic guardrails in place.
SCOOP: Major U.S. banks are detecting unauthorized third-party AI agents inside customer accounts, including some attempting to take actions that appear to be independent of user instructions, sources told Axios.
The findings have alarmed banking executives, who are racing to restrict access to their systems as AI moves at a velocity faster than financial institutions can respond, multiple industry and bank executives told Axios.
Several banks are now preparing for worst-case and even “day after” scenarios, including how to rapidly secure or restore customer accounts if things go wrong, the people said.
Several bank executives told Axios they're struggling to distinguish between human users and AI agents. One executive said banks also struggle to determine whether agents are authorized by customers or potentially operating without their permission, more akin to rogue agent behavior.
Read my latest for Axios here: axios.com/2026/10/22/ai-agen…
Starlink has become critical military infrastructure. But it remains under the control of Elon Musk, a billionaire who can decide who gets access and on what terms.
That's far too much power for one private company (& CEO) to wield.
New from @MaxvonThun: substack.com/home/post/p-221…