Hello, my name is David Ronserman and this is Talking Politics. This is the third episode

in our American History series and today Gary Gerstle is going to tell us the story of

Ida Talbell, the woman who brought down standard oil. Could the same thing happen today?

In the age of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook.

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Today's episode is about monopoly and muck-raking. Let's start with monopoly.

So it has a particular cache I think in American political and public life at the end of the 19th

century which is when we're coming to but what's the origin story here? What did monopoly mean as an

idea as a term at this point? monopoly in America comes straight out of the American revolution

and the belief that George the third British Crown had taken all power onto itself and was

strangling the liberties of the people. And so America's foundation story, its origin story,

is about not just rebelling against the Crown and George the third but it's rebelling against

the principle of monopoly. It was originally conceived of as political monopoly of one man,

one institution having control over all political institutions and not allowing other voices or

serious representation. There was an economic dimension to it because part of the power of the

Crown was to issue charters, to crown favorites, to establish colonies, to trade, to transport,

to mine. And this practice of issuing monopolies is actually transferred initially into the new

American nation. So there is an economic dimension to it but it's regarded with a great deal of

skepticism and anger because economic monopoly like political monopoly is going to strangle

...