Renewing the Democratic Republic
Open Markets & Partners Convened Top Antimonopoly Thinkers: Senator Elizabeth Warren, AAG Jonathan Kanter, Ayad Akhtar, Flight Attendants Union President Sara Nelson, Luigi Zingales & More
WASHINGTON - On Wednesday, February 15, 2023 in Washington, DC, the Open Markets Institute convened leading thinkers in today’s antimonopoly renaissance – from around the world and across the political spectrum - for a conference on the power of antimonopoly principles to renew American democracy, strengthen our economy, and construct a more peaceful and sustainable world.
This work has powerful implications across such diverse areas as worker rights and discrimination, climate change, digital platforms and privacy abuses, freedom of media and journalism, industrial policy, artistic liberty, economic resiliency and supply chain issues, peace and security, and perhaps most importantly, our very democracy. All of them are severely impacted by an extreme concentration of corporate power and market share and all of them can be tremendously improved by reining in corporate monopolies.
The event reconnected Americans to the ideas, narratives, and laws that previous generations used to preserve individual liberty, protect community, and engage every citizen in the day-to-day challenges of building a good society. We see, how from the first days of our Republic, competition policy has been a foundation of our democracy, security, and prosperity. We learned how we can update and expand traditional visions of democracy to help us master the specific political and technological challenges of today.
Speakers & Panels
Conference Opening - Opening Remarks from Barry Lynn and Rana Foroohar
Open Markets Institute Executive Director Barry Lynn & conference co-host and Financial Times columnist Rana Foroohar opened our February 15, 2023 conference, "Renewing the Democratic Republic."
The Next Stage in Rebuilding Democracy – Keynote
Senator Warren’s pivotal 2016 speech on antimonopoly principles with Open Markets put antitrust enforcement and competition policy back on the political map, motivating policymakers to act. Once again, Senator Warren joins to help define what’s next in this fight.
READ Senator Warren’s remarks here
Senator Elizabeth Warren - United States senator, Massachusetts
The Antimonopoly Movement – in Brief
The appointments of Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter. A historic Executive Order on Competition. This tremendous progress, and more, was made possible because of a dedicated coalition of advocates and thinkers. Public Citizen’s Rob Weissman spoke on the power of coming together in this work.
Rob Weissman - President, Public Citizen
Other Peoples Gods? The Intersection of Power & Economics - Conversation
For most of the last 40 years, policymakers -- and the economists who advise them – held that concentrated economic power was efficient, hence good for society. Now, the American people are awakening to the many political and economic threats posed by extreme concentration of industrial capacity and control over basic communications. With top experts in economics and antitrust from the U.S. and the EU, this conversation helped chart a better path forward.
Barry Lynn (Moderator) - Executive director, Open Markets Institute
Luigi Zingales - Professor of economics University of Chicago Booth School of Business, director of the Stigler Center, co-author of the book “Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists,” and author of “A Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity”
Cristina Caffarra - Managing Partner and Head of Keystone Europe and widely recognized as a thought leader in the regulation of the digital economy globally
Democracy and Speech in the Age of Monopoly - Talk
"Monopolies in this country have always used their power to steal from Black people first and foremost…” Rashad Robinson, president of the racial justice organization, Color of Change, gave remarks on the central role of racial justice in the fight to win new rules for antimonopoly and ensure those rules measure up to the challenges we face.
READ Robinson’s remarks here
Rashad Robinson - President, Color of Change
Of Stories and Liberty – Visions of a Vanished American Promise, Restored - Keynote
In 2020, Ayad Akhtar published Homeland Elegies, a novel about growing up in an America in which monopolists had strip mined our communities, destabilized our democracy, and walled off a better future. Akhtar, who is President of PEN America and who won a Pulitzer Prize for his play Disgraced, will spoke on the extreme perils we face today, and of their source.
READ Akhtar’s speech here
Ayad Akhtar - Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and the president of PEN America, whose book Homeland Elegies contains one of the most haunting and powerful descriptions of how monopolists bulldozed American society
Bridging Constitutional Democracy and Antimonopoly - Conversation
Last month, Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter’s Antitrust Division brought a history-making antitrust suit against Google for years of monopolizing digital advertising. This came soon after a deeply important victory blocking a dangerous merger in book publishing. With constitutional legal scholar Caroline Fredrickson, AAG Kanter discussed how our democracy, free speech, free press, and personal liberties all depend on strong, smart antimonopoly enforcement. And further, about the constitutional nature of antimonopoly law.
Jonathan Kanter - Head of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice
Caroline Fredrickson - The former president of the American Constitution Society, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, and a Senior Fellow at the Brennan Center
Bridging Constitutional Democracy and Antimonopoly - Analysis
The distribution of power, control, and opportunity has been foundational to our democracy, security, and prosperity since the early days of our republic. Can we reconnect Americans to the ideas, narratives, and laws that previous generations used to understand the true promise of antimonopoly law, in protecting and expanding human liberty? Rahman and Fishkin drew from their extensive writings on the constitutional nature of competition policy to explain how we may do that.
Sabeel Rahman - Former Associate Administrator, OIRA
Joey Fishkin - Professor of Law UCLA, co-author of “The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy”
Rana Foroohar (Moderator) - Global Business Columnist and an Associate Editor at the Financial Times and author of the book “Homecoming,” which makes the case that a new age of economic localization will re-moor place and prosperity, putting to an end to the last half century of globalization
A World Without Chokepoints? How Smart Cooperation Promotes Peace and Prosperity
For years, many have warned that extreme concentration of industrial and supply chain capacity poses existential threats to the U.S. and our allies and partners around the world. The Biden Administration has taken the first needed steps to break these chokepoints. But much more is needed. This discussion detailed how the U.S. works with our allies to build a safer, fairer, more sustainable world.
Rana Foroohar
Julius Krein - Editor, American Affairs Journal
Elizabeth Baltzan - Senior Advisor, USTR
Lee Harris (Moderator) - Reporter, The American Prospect
A Revolution in Thinking: From Neoliberalism Back to Liberalism - Keynote
As president of the Hewlett Foundation and author of “The People Themselves,” Larry Kramer has invested deeply in understanding neoliberalism and how to overcome it. He shared his findings and spoke on the revolutionary change in thinking about power and the political economy that is taking place in America today.
Larry Kramer - President of the Hewlett Foundation and author of The People Themselves
A Digital Republic? Debate in the Age of Google and Musk - Panel
Platform monopolies have eroded the free press, spread digital hate and misinformation, and threatened democratic processes in the U.S. and abroad. This panel covered the competition policy tools available to break up this power concentration and address some of its worst harms.
Karina Montoya Guevara - Reporter/Researcher, Center for Journalism and Liberty
Cheyenne Hunt-Majer - Big Tech Accountability Advocate, Public Citizen
Breaking Power to Build Power: How Workers Can Overcome Monopoly – Keynote
As head of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, Sara Nelson confronts the monopsony power of the airlines in order to get her 50,000 union members the pay, benefits, and working conditions they deserve. She helped us consider how the labor and antimonopoly movements intersect.
Udit Thakur (Introduction) - Policy Advisor, International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Sara Nelson - International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO, who resists daily the monopsony power of the airlines on behalf of her 50,000 union members
Breaking Power to Build Power – How Workers Can Overcome Monopoly - Conversation
Our consideration of the intersection of labor and antimonopoly continued with Sara Nelson and Open Markets Institute’s Legal Director Sandeep Vaheesan, a leader in the movement’s work to educate policymakers on the harms of restrictive employment contracts, such as non-competes. Washington Post columnist and author of “Pound Foolish,” Helaine Olen moderated.
Sara Nelson
Sandeep Vaheesan - Legal Director, Open Markets Institute
Helaine Olen (Moderator) - Contributor, The Washington Post
Organizations supporting the event include Color of Change, the Financial Times, Public Citizen, as well as Americans for Financial Reform, Accountable Tech, Demand Progress, Economic Security Project, Farm Action, Fight Corporate Monopolies and the American Economic Liberties Project, Free Press, Future of Music Coalition, Groundwork Collaborative, Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), News Media Alliance, Public Knowledge, and the Revolving Door Project.
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