The Age of Monopoly: Power, Censorship, & The New Consensus | Matt Stoller
Hidden Forces
Demetri Kofinas
4.8 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 1 June 2020
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Episode 139 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Matt Stoller, Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project and author of Goliath: The Hundred Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy. In this nearly two-hour long conversation, we discuss how monopoly, commercial concentration, and regulatory capture drive outcomes in our economy, markets, and political system and what we can do to take that power back.
This episode was recorded on Friday, May 29th, amidst the riots that have been unfolding across the country in response to the death of George Floyd, a 46-year old African American man who appears to have been suffocated by Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin. Neither Matt or Demetri are in any position to provide further insight into what is transpiring in Minneapolis, but they do discuss the response by some members of the media, the White House, as well as the President's statement that he is going to issue an executive order to roll back Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act with its legal protections for social media companies.
We also discuss the Joe Rogan-Spotify deal in the context of antitrust regulation and concentration in the podcast industry, the arrest of a CNN crew in Minneapolis, private equity and the regulatory capture of government by the financial sector, and perhaps most importantly a conversation about the future of the Democratic and Republican parties and whether we are living through the early stages of a new political consensus forming in American life.
You can access the episode overtime, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week's episode through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application.
Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas
Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou
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Episode Recorded on 05/29/2020
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today's episode of Hidden Forces is made possible by listeners like you. |
| 0:04.4 | For more information about this week's episode or for easy access to related programming |
| 0:09.7 | visit our website at hidden Forces. I.O. and subscribe to our free email list. |
| 0:16.4 | If you listen to the show on your Apple Podcast app, remember, you can give us a review. |
| 0:21.5 | Each review helps more people find the show and join our |
| 0:24.9 | amazing community. And with that, please enjoy this week's episode. And the What's up everybody? My guest today is Matt Stoller. |
| 0:59.6 | Matt is the Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project and the author of Goliath, a book about the history of monopoly power and the efforts by citizens and the government to |
| 1:05.5 | restrain it. He publishes regularly at Matt Stoler.com and you're about to learn in today's nearly two hour long conversation how |
| 1:16.0 | monopoly, commercial concentration and regulatory capture by the most powerful interests |
| 1:22.1 | in American life drive outcomes in our economy, markets, and political system, |
| 1:28.0 | and what we can do to take that power back. |
| 1:32.0 | This episode was recorded on Friday, May 29th, in the afternoon in the midst |
| 1:37.9 | of the riots that have been unfolding in Minneapolis and across the rest of the country in response to the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American |
| 1:47.7 | father of two girls aged six and 22, who appears on video to have been suffocated by Minneapolis police officer |
| 1:56.6 | Derek Chauvin, who was applying pressure to Mr Floyd's neck for somewhere between |
| 2:01.8 | eight to nine minutes, almost three of which were reportedly after he had already become unresponsive. |
| 2:09.0 | Shavin is now in custody. A coroner's report has been issued, it's already sparking controversy. |
| 2:17.6 | And this, unfortunately, is a very familiar story for America's black community and for the rest of us who are |
| 2:27.3 | struggling to understand what we have to do in order to fix it. It must be absolutely heartbreaking for George's |
| 2:37.7 | family, his daughters, his siblings, to know that the person they love was killed while lying face down on the concrete, |
| 2:48.8 | not resisting, begging to breathe. Neither Matt or I are in any position to provide further insight into what is transpiring in Minneapolis. |
| 2:59.0 | But we do discuss the response by some members of the media, the White House, as well as the |
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