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Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction Paperback – December 1, 2011
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—Thomas Frank, Wall Street Journal
Barry C. Lynn, one of the most original and surprising students of the American economy, paints a genuinely alarming picture: most of our public debates about globalization, competitiveness, creative destruction, and risky finance are nothing more than a cover for the widespread consolidation of power in nearly every imaginable sector of the American economy.
Cornered strips the camouflage from the secret world of twenty-first-century monopolies-neofeudalist empires whose sheer size, vast resources, and immense political power enable the people who control to direct virtually every major industry in America in an increasingly authoritarian manner. Lynn reveals how these massive juggernauts, which would have been illegal just thirty years ago, came into being, how they have destroyed or devoured their competition, and how they collude with one another to maintain their power and create the illusion of open, competitive markets.
A confluence of small government zealotry and misguided efficient market theories has lead to a complete dismantling of government oversight of industry. Has that brought us the promised economic utopia? Just the opposite. For decades, the dominant elite has used the federal government to all but encourage companies to buy one another up, outsource all their production, and make their profits by leveraging their complete power over the market itself. Lynn makes clear it will take more than a lawsuit or two to overthrow America's corporatist oligarchy and restore a model of capitalism that protects our rights as property holders and citizens, and the independence of our Republic.
- Details how regular citizens can join together to beat the great powers, and how to do so by relearning the real history and language of our democratic republic.
- Includes stories of real people and real industries that show how monopolies threaten independent businesses, squelch innovation, degrade the quality and safety of products, destabilize vital industrial and financial systems, and destroy the fabric of democracy
- Explores monopoly power across a wide array of industries, including appliances, auto parts, beer, eyeglasses, medical supplies, pet food, surfboards, vitamins, and more.
- Demonstrates how the drive for ""always lower prices"" makes your job disappear, puts your small business out of business, and turns dreams of entrepreneurial success into impossible fantasies
Lynn is that rarest of creatures, a journalist whose theoretical writings are taken very seriously by the top policymakers and economic thinkers in Washington and around the world. His work has been compared already to John Kenneth Galbraith and Peter Drucker. The Washington Post called Lynn's last book-on globalization-""Tom Friedman for grownups."" Cornered is essential reading for anyone who cares about America and its future.
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherTrade Paper Press
- Publication dateDecember 1, 2011
- Dimensions5.98 x 0.98 x 8.82 inches
- ISBN-100470928565
- ISBN-13978-0470928561
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Product details
- Publisher : Trade Paper Press; 1st edition (December 1, 2011)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0470928565
- ISBN-13 : 978-0470928561
- Item Weight : 13.8 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.98 x 0.98 x 8.82 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,376,069 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #686 in Free Enterprise & Capitalism
- #1,022 in Economic Policy
- #1,364 in Economic Policy & Development (Books)
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About the author

In his first book - End of the Line (2005) - Barry wrote a pathbreaking study of industrial systems made "Too Big to Fail" and of the dangers of overly extreme interdependence among nations. The Washington Post called End of the Line "Tom Friedman for grown-ups" and Ha Joon Chang compared that work to the writings of John Kenneth Galbraith. In Cornered, Barry takes an explosive look at how financiers use their powers in ways that destroy jobs, crush independent businesses, hobble innovation, degrade safety, harm our environment, and, most dangerous of all, threaten the political foundations of our democratic republic. Barry is director of the Markets, Enterprise, and Resiliency Project, and a senior fellow, at the New America Foundation. He has presented his work to high officials in Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Taiwan, and the European Commission, as well as the White House and U.S. Treasury.
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Barry C. Lynn, has been a reporter for the Associated Press and Agence France-Press. He was also a senior fellow at the New America Foundation think tank in Washington, D.C., directing the Open Markets Program. The program was shut down and Mr. Lynn was fired, allegedly for criticizing Google, one of New America Foundation’s chief funders, all of which makes sense. After all, Google is a monopoly power and Mr. Lynn has made a career covering the monopolies who dominate every industry in America.
Lynn points out how the monopolist in the digital world enjoys a power that the monopolist in the physical world does not — this is the power not only to isolate producers from one another and to discriminate among them but also to isolate consumers from one another and to discriminate among them. Although Cornered was published in 2010, its assertions and fact patterns continue to hold weight and are alarming; it’s chilling to observe how much worse things have gotten. The social media monopolies use the information they collect about us to exploit us personally, professionally, financially and politically.
We’ve all been bamboozled and all of this happened right under our nose. Take a look at the consolidation of our department stores—the fun places where we used to like to shop. The holding company Federated controlled Bullock’s, Burdines, the Bon Marche, Bloomingdale’s and Jordan Marsh. In 2005 Federated grabbed the May Department stores that had corralled Lord & Taylor, Marshall Fields, Filene’s, Hecht’s and Wanamaker’s. Most of these stores are gone, gobbled up by a beast that could never be satiated.
Why buy a business just to kill it? As Mr. Lynn points out, “Success in business is less a function of better quality products at lower prices than it is of having good lawyers, friendly legislators and strategic alliances with financiers who will help you buy up, buy off or bankrupt the competition.” One less competitor gives the monopoly that much more power to control an industry.
No industry is exempt from the monstrous appetite of the monopolist. Take commodities — wheat, corn and grain. According to Lynn, “The huge spike in the price of wheat from $3 per bushel to $13 a bushel in the spring of 2008 was not due to a natural or political disaster; it was due to deregulation in the commodities markets in the last two decades that made it easier for speculators to manipulate the prices we pay for our oil, natural gas, cotton, rice, even ship bottoms.”
After giving us a wealth of facts that cannot be disproven and a good dose of the history of Antitrust and Consumer Protection Law, Mr. Lynn also gives us heartbreaking stories that are happening to real people as a direct result of the hidden monopolies that are everywhere.
During the toxic pet food scandal of 2007, rat poison found in pet food was blamed for the deaths of at least 16 cats and dogs. The pet deaths led to a recall of 60 million cans and pouches of dog and cat food produced by Menu Foods and sold throughout North America under 95 brand names.
John McCarthy bought a Quiznos franchise in North Palm Beach, Florida, and Bhupinder “Bob” Buber used his entire life savings to buy two Quiznos franchises in Long Beach, California. John McCarthy lost his life savings, but far worse, Bob Buber lost everything he owned and took his own life. Both men were swindled by Quiznos.
There are stories of the many farmers who sell their produce in the downtown City Market in Kansas City Missouri, fighting off the mega chain food producers who try to flood their stalls with commercially grown food, pretending they are independent farmers. These last holdouts to the industrialization of our food supply fret from day to day, wondering if today will be their last day in business.
How did America go from being the land of a free market economy to the land of the monopoly?
During a fireside chat on September 30, 1934, Franklin Roosevelt warned that “men flying the banner of ‘liberty’ would seek to ‘regiment’ the majority of Americans ‘into the service of a privileged few.’”
Predation by the rich and powerful has been going on for a long time, but never before has monopoly power stampeded so wildly out of control, crushing competitors, small businesses and individuals alike in order to stay on top. The gutting of antitrust laws, coupled with the decline of trusted regulatory agencies, has given monopoly powers carte blanche to do whatever they want in the “free market,” a market that is free for them but closed to everyone else.
Editor’s Note: Cornered by Barry C. Lynn is an excellent companion to The Curse of Bigness by Tim Wu.
At times the book veers close to conspiracy thinking or economic doomsday visions, but given the gravity of the actual situation this is not completely unwarranted. For me, the most salient point of the book is how the author suggests or even shows in places, that a facade was created to give the impression of freedom, free markets, efficiency and prosperity when in reality, what has actually been going on is a systematic program of economic looting in which financiers have stripped the economy for profit and left a very shaky foundation. The problem we have is that many average citizens have the mistaken idea that reducing government regulation and not enforcing anti-trust laws is economically beneficial. We often hear assertions that many voters are convinced to vote against their own best interests. This book gives a concrete example of one way in which that can be true.
While the situation seems grave, the author claims that we are not without hope. He suggests that we can begin to turn things around if average people insist that the government get back to its role of protecting the real free market and economic freedom for average people by upholding anti-trust laws and making sure that large conglomerates and monopolies are not able to wrest control of whole segments of the economy in ways that are counterproductive to the general welfare of the nation.
I'm sure that economically-savvy readers could find reasons to criticize some of what the author claims, but I think most average readers will find this book educational, if not a bit frightening.


