Wow, dystopia. [Monopolized by David Dayen]

From the cars we drive to what toothpaste we use, how a tiny group of corporations have come to dominate every aspect of our lives

“If you’re looking for a book . . . that will get your heart pumping and your blood boiling and that will remind you why we’re in these fights—add this one to your list.” —Senator Elizabeth Warren on David Dayen’s Chain of Title

Over the last forty years our choices have narrowed, our opportunities have shrunk, and our lives have become governed by a handful of very large and very powerful corporations. Today, practically everything we buy, everywhere we shop, and every service we secure comes from a heavily concentrated market.

This is a world where four major banks control most of our money, four airlines shuttle most of us around the country, and four major cell phone providers connect most of our communications. If you are sick you can go to one of three main pharmacies to fill your prescription, and if you end up in a hospital almost every accessory to heal you comes from one of a handful of large medical suppliers.

Dayen, the editor of the American Prospect and author of the acclaimed Chain of Title, provides a riveting account of what it means to live in this new age of monopoly and how we might resist this corporate hegemony.

Through vignettes and vivid case studies Dayen shows how these monopolies have transformed us, inverted us, and truly changed our lives, at the same time providing readers with the raw material to make monopoly a consequential issue in American life and revive a long-dormant antitrust movement.

via GIPHY

I don't know what to say. I mean, I guess I knew what I was getting myself into when I decided to request a read of a book discussing monopoly in the United States, but I didn't expect the reality to be so grim. A portion of my adulthood has involved accepting that money runs the world, my society, and near everything in my life. Accepting that the education I thought would innately entitle me to a steady income and upward economic mobility has instead and further locked me into a prison of debt in a society that already devalues me and my demographic. But most days I operate under the dream, the notion that at any given moment a windfall of the right amount of money can take me out of my situation, at least in certain respects. So adding to my awareness of the evils of capitalism, while empowering, was obviously not to be uplifting. I should have known as much.

In just 12 chapters, David Dayen's Monopolized takes the reader on an illuminating historical tour of our failed and corrupted judiciary and legislature, exploring the web of interconnected greed the American citizenry is knowingly and unknowingly trapped in. That in virtually every industry there is a monopoly was disheartening. How those monopolies are further monopolized was the double punch. A grim reality? Yes. But this is a must read. Not to be an end all, be all, Dayen invites further reading early on, inviting critical analysis and discussion, ending with a hopeful vision for the future.

Oddly, I enjoyed reading this book? I can't say I'm walking away empowered and ready to hit the ground running, but I am walking away more informed. I can feel firmer in my social and economic ideals and I can participate better as a citizen in my government. Of my politicians I have stronger expectations. I have hope that something will change, that the dam will break. 5 stars from me.

Monopolized has an expected publication date of July 21, 2020.