Rebalancing Europe: a new economic agenda for tackling monopoly power
A coalition of civil society groups has launched an anti-monopoly manifesto.
Welcome to The Counterbalance, the newsletter of the Balanced Economy Project. This edition focuses on a new civil society anti-monopoly manifesto. This manifesto focuses on the European Union, but its messages have wide relevance, around the world.
We also highlight our LinkedIn page which include links to our recent posts.
Rebalancing Europe: a new economic agenda for tackling monopoly power
In June, millions of Europeans will be called upon to vote in elections that will determine the course and character of European democracy for years to come.
As we face multiple crises – war on our eastern border, climate change, fake news, demagogues – a coalition of civil society groups including the Balanced Economy Project, has come together to create a manifesto with a vision of a different world – and some clear pathways to get there.
For too long, the EU hesitated as a handful of powerful corporations gained strangleholds over economic life: our core communications and commercial technologies, essential goods, and critical supply chains. Hundreds of major corporate mergers went unchallenged, leading to serious and growing corporate concentration.
This has severely weakened Europe’s power to provide for its citizens and defend their rights and freedoms. It has made us depend on unaccountable, even hostile, corporate and state actors. Many of our critical industries – such as finance, energy, transportation, and pharmaceuticals – are controlled by a few giants.
The monopolists are moving to sew up control of rapidly developing artificial intelligence technologies. Farmers are being squeezed: by supermarkets, by giant agricultural firms, by financial actors; and health systems are creaking under ferocious patents, dominant healthcare giants and extractive private equity techniques.
Rising monopoly power harms Europe’s workers, entrepreneurs, citizens, small businesses and consumers; the EU now struggles to innovate, prosper, and deliver for its citizens.
Change is coming – but it is too little, too slowly. Our shared manifesto outlines a bolder path. We reject a vision of a top-heavy economy dominated by a few giant “champions” where governments help them compete on the world stage by giving them handouts and slashing regulation.
What is required is co-operation built on power being widely and fairly distributed, where powerful corporations are not allowed to subvert the public interest. The next European Commission must develop a coherent plan to deliver on this vision and restore freedom, opportunity, and prosperity to all its citizens by reining in and dispersing concentrated economic power.
This manifesto sets out a roadmap for reimagining the mission, structure, and powers of the European Commission and European Parliament to achieve these vital ends.
Read the manifesto here.
We are also co-hosting an event in Brussels on this, next Monday (15th,) with some exciting speakers. Tickets were going fast - it may be sold out by now but you may get lucky.
Our recent LinkedIn Posts and Articles
Lina Khan on the Daily Show: what is a monopoly?
Apple caught a lot of negative media attention when Jon Stewart interviewed Lina Khan, Chair of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and revealed that his previous employer, Apple TV+, had banned him from interviewing her. In the interview, which we'd thoroughly recommend, Khan also answered a question that bothers a lot of people. What is a monopoly?
How Finance Monopolises Veterinary Services
Starting with a Norwegian billionaire whose private equity-like firm is gobbling up vet firms in multiple countries - helping prompt the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to launch a full market investigation. Reminding us of a smorgasbord of sneaky private equity practices. (See also our case study How Finance Drives Monopoly Power, for our Davos report in January, already mentioned on The Counterbalance.)
Bernie Sanders, Oxfam and Monopoly Power.
Sanders discusses Oxfam’s tremendously important report Inequality, Inc., which we’re proud to have contributed to. “A deep dive into how companies are driving inequality, and how they are using their power and influence to sustain [it.]
Block the Vodafone - Three merger.
We’ve done a lot of work to push back against this deal, which would reduce the number of UK Mobile Network Operators from four to three. This article contains some delightful comments from a research firm about a “Mickey Mouse” report by consultancy firm Compass Lexecon, which has serious form in throwing pro-monopoly ‘smoke’ over inconvenient evidence. The UK’s CMA then said it would move to a full Phase 2 investigation, to see through the companies’ smokescreens.
European Court of Justice finds IAB Europe responsible for “TCF” consent spam popups across the Internet
An important win for the incisive, indefatigable Johnny Ryan and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties. People across Europe have been plagued by fake “consent” popups every day on almost every website and app since the GDPR was introduced almost six years ago. IAB Europe has sought to evade its responsibility for this charade.
Why does Labour need to suck up to the City?
Links to my latest article in The Guardian newspaper. Britain’s economy is stifled by too much finance. So why is the Labour Party, which is almost certain to win power in this year’s UK General Election, drinking finance’s Kool-Aid? Since the global financial crisis Britain has been the laggard among rich countries: over-dependence on financial services is a key reason.
SMEs: European digital markets are Big Tech's playground
An article by Rana Foroohar in the Financial Times, arguing that U.S. regulators have leap-frogged ahead of their European counterparts, got a feisty response from a top EU regulator. But his response then garnered (even feistier) pushback, including from small and medium enterprises. While Europe is beginning to slowly shift in the right direction, these shifts aren’t seismic enough to seize the dominant and abusive power of corporate power. See our new manifesto for more.
Apple's tiny €500 million expected fine from Europe is a sign of a broken system
As we were just saying. 1.7 days of pre-tax profits, paying for a world of damage.
Monopoly Money - new Greenpeace podcast
A wide-ranging discussion of climate, economics, and monopoly power, by the author of this Counterbalance.
The Harms from Concentrated Industries: A Primer
We’ve flagged this important report from Denise Hearn and we’ll flag it again.
For more, do please follow us on LinkedIn.
Endnotes
“I have very little concern about AI safety, nor interest in trying to regulate for it” - Benedict Evans. On tech regulation, Evans’ newsletter is influential - and carries many dangerous ideas. AI is supercharging many harmful activities - ranging from deepfake pornography to electoral interference.
“Competition policy must be comfortable with AI-powered businesses from across the UK growing into giants of the world economy and becoming nodes in the global generation of economic value.”- Tony Blair Institute. (Hat tip: George Dibb.)
This is the (very dangerous) “Competitiveness Agenda” at work: see p9 of the manifesto. More generally, as we noted in our Taken, not Earned report:
“In her 1951 book The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt described totalitarian movements as “mass organisations of atomised, isolated individuals.”
This is precisely what social media giants are pushing us towards: a world where each of us can be steered and discriminated against, so we are atomised in our own reality.
As this happens, we increasingly lose our ability to form and express independent thought, and organise around shared projects to promote the public good. Without greater public intervention to limit the power of Big Tech, new technologies like AI will supercharge these harms.”