Why Antimonopoly Awoke From Its Slumber, Part 1: The Clinton Era’s Failed Utopia
There are two basic components to the story of why the antimonopoly movement is coming back:
1. Why have businesspeople, political leaders, and citizens lost faith in what was?
2. Why have businesspeople, political leaders, and citizens begun to see in private monopolies the central element of dysfunction?
This is a complex political story, and it is happening all over the world, not just in the US. Moreover, antimonopolism is not a left-wing or right-wing type of politics, it is business reformism. It is how we think about our commercial selves, and thus our political selves. In part one, I’m going to try and describe where we came from so that we can understand the magnitude of the shift, which is akin to a once-in-a-generation political and philosophical revolution.
Revolutions start in our minds, and then they unleash themselves on the world through political events. For context, here’s one of my favorite passages from the American Founders, in a letter from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson in 1815:
“What do We mean by the Revolution? The War? That was no part of the Revolution. It was only an Effect and Consequence of it. The Revolution was in the Minds of the People, and this was effected, from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen Years before a drop of blood was drawn at Lexington. The Records of thirteen Legislatures, the Pamphlets, Newspapers in all the Colonies ought be consulted, during that Period, to ascertain the Steps by which the public opinion was enlightened and informed concerning the Authority of Parliament over the Colonies.”