How corporate concentration hurts the economy (with Stacy Mitchell)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 12 October 2021

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Anti-monopoly and pro-local advocate Stacy Mitchell joins the show to talk about small business, big business, and decentralizing economic power. Stacy Mitchell is the co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. She directs ILSR’s Independent Business Initiative, which produces research and analysis and partners with a broad range of allies to design and implement policies to reverse corporate concentration and strengthen local enterprise. Twitter: @stacyfmitchell Further reading: Small Business Rising: https://www.smallbusinessrising.net/ Institute for Local Self-Reliance: https://ilsr.org/ Senate Testimony: Concentration is at the Root of Rural Distress: https://ilsr.org/stacy-mitchells-senate-testimony-on-state-of-rural-economy/ As Amazon rises, so does the opposition: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/technology/athena-mitchell-amazon.html Why the left should ally with small business: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/democrats-labor-business-monopoly/ Report: Amazon’s stranglehold: How the company’s tightening grip on the economy is stifling competition, eroding jobs, and threatening communities: https://ilsr.org/amazon-stranglehold/ Don’t let Amazon get any bigger: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/opinion/amazon-antitrust.html Amazon doesn’t just want to dominate the market - it wants to become the market: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/amazon-doesnt-just-want-to-dominate-the-market-it-wants-to-become-the-market/ The rise and fall of the word ‘monopoly’ in American life: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/word-monopoly-antitrust/530169/ Big box swindle: https://stacymitchell.com/front-page/ Voters want to curb the influence of big tech companies: https://www.wsj.com/articles/voters-want-to-curb-the-influence-of-big-tech-companies-new-poll-shows-11632405601 Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer

Transcript

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0:00.0	Big box companies are really the cause of a lot of the economic distress in rural America.
0:11.4	It's not that small businesses can't compete, they are encountering various forms of monopoly
0:17.9	power, various ways in which big companies can muscle them out of the market.
0:23.6	What we really need to do is to level the playing field.
0:33.0	From the home offices of civic ventures in downtown Seattle, this is pitchfork economics,
0:38.0	with Nick Hanauer, the best place to get the truth about who gets what and why.
0:48.7	I'm David Goldstein, senior fellow at Civic Ventures.
0:57.0	We've spent a lot of time thinking about the economic decline of rural America, and if
1:02.2	there's one thing we've become convinced of, it's that it wasn't inevitable.
1:07.1	Over the past 40 years, we made policy choices that resulted in unprecedented levels of market
1:13.1	concentration.
1:14.7	And it is this outsized market power, particularly in retail, that has played a huge role in driving
1:21.0	down wages and in destroying local businesses.
1:24.6	Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with Stacey Mitchell, the co-director of the
1:29.9	Institute for Self-Reliance, about how monopoly power is undermining rural economies and
1:36.2	about the policies we need to revive them.
1:43.5	I'm Stacey Mitchell.
1:44.5	I am the co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, we're an organization
1:49.6	that does research and develops policies and strategies to reverse corporate concentration
1:54.5	and build driving local economies and communities.
1:59.2	And I do a lot of research and analysis and writing about monopoly power, independent
2:04.0	businesses, local economies, and Amazon.
	...

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