Together with Jeremy Smith of Policy Research in Macroeconomics (PRIME), I wrote this for the website UnHerd.com, edited by Tim Montgomerie. The site’s aim is “to appeal to people who instinctively refuse to follow the herd and also want to investigate ‘unheard’ ideas, individuals and communities.”
The piece begins with this quote from Alice Walker: “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”
Today, the world is confronted by globe-spanning, tax-dodging corporate behemoths; monopolies based on advanced, intrusive as well as seductive technologies. Some are armour-plated cartels with ever-stronger (and longer) intellectual property protection. They include not only the FANGS – that bundle of high-tech platform utilities – but also Big Pharma, Big Agrobusiness, Big Media and Megabanks. The rise of these new monopolies has coincided with the lowering of real wages, especially in the UK and US, for many workers, and to a reduction in the labour share of the economy.
Read more on UnHerd.com