Annals of Anti-Monopoly: I will be in DC on 25 September to give a talk at George Mason University. The public is invited. Teaser: why was George Washington furious at the reactionary politics of his fellow Virginian George Mason? Was Washington on to something? Is it time to…cancel George Mason?

Annals of anti-monopoly: This just dropped today. When did Americans start seriously worrying about media concentration? Hint: in the 1930s. How did this debate shape media coverage of the Second World War?

Annals of anti-monopoly: Here is my review (critical yet appreciative) of Dan Schiller’s monumental history of 20th c. U.S. telecommunications policy — forty years in the making. Schiller is particularly suggestive on the FCC in the 1930s, a neglected topic, and on the efficacy of consent decrees.

Announcing an open search for a position in Columbia’s Ph. D. program in communications “We are particularly interested in candidates pursuing pioneering research agendas in:  Science, Technology, and Society (STS); media law and policy; media history; global media….” apply.interfolio.com/162364

Annals of anti-monopoly: “…the safer course…decentralization of power, [but] the uniform power to regulate these enterprises [eg railroads], if they partake in the least of a monopoly character, must be equally extensive with the territory they occupy.” Sterne, _Constitutional History_ (1882).

Annals of anti-monopoly: historian Shane Hamilton explains how shifts in the U.S. food distribution networks led to the blocked Kroger-Albertsons merger.

Annals of anti-monopoly: “Plutocracy is its own kind of dictatorship. When companies larger, wealthier and more powerful than most world governments threaten individual liberty with coercive private taxation and regulation, it threatens our way of life." Jonathan Kanter, antitrust head. DOJ, 2024

Annals of anti-monopoly…..in the news…. www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020...

Annals of anti-monopoly: The meaning of monopoly has shifted over time. Pete Roady’s _Contest over National Security_ shows how in the 1930s and 1940s the related catch phrase “ national security” was stripped of its association with domestic reform. wwwww.hup.harvard.edu/books/97806742…

Annals of anti-monopoly: how did lawmaker John Sherman (whose name is today linked with the famous federal anti-monopoly law) try to reign in “Big Tech”? What forgotten legislation did he craft? And…why did it matter? I explored these topics in a recent piece for HNN. www.hnn.us/article/the-...

Annals of anti-monopoly: my piece on how 20th c. telephone publicists shaped the history books, and set up a major center for the study of U.S. history at Harvard. Can expertise be mobilized to promote the political agenda of Big Tech? History says yes. www.promarket.org/2024/09/13/h...

Annals of anti-monopoly: I join Kathryn Brownell and Jeannette Estruth in Washington, D.C., on 6 June for a congressional briefing on federal media policy. My topic is federal regulation of the mail, the telegraph, telephone, and radio. Details below. www.historians.org/news-and-adv...

Anti-Monopoly Roundtable Today— featuring Tim Wu, Bill Novak, Kate Andrias, Suresh Naidu, and…myself. Click below for the registration information — with the Zoom link. We will be discussing Crane and Novak, ed., _Antimonopoly and American Democracy_. events.columbia.edu/cal/event/even…

Annals of anti-monopoly: “[Brandeis] wanted government action not only to destroy bigness but affirmatively to protect smallness—even, if necessary, at expense of competition.” Schlesinger, _Politics of Upheaval_p. 388.

David Donald developed his thesis in _Liberty and Union_, a stimulating, if neglected, survey of 19th c US public life that revealed the strengths AND the weaknesses of the justly criticized “party period” model, a legacy of Cold War-era assumptions about the essential coherence of US public life.

Rachel Sheldon’s fine new coauthored essay in the _JAH_ is helping 19th c. US historians to move beyond the “party period” synthesis (championed among others by my mentor David Donald). Party competition for Donald helped to promote unity (along with faith in the Constitution and popular oratory).

Ben: 8-10 is pretty normal for me. But I straddle two Ph.D. granting programs — so that might be a bit on the high end.

Annals of anti-monopoly: can the history of the remarkably successful regulation (municipal, state, and federal) of the Bell System provide insight into the Graham-Warren proposal for the regulation of Big Tech? Hint: yes. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Noble’s _Religion of Technology_ is eminently teachable — but I agree — there is much more to be done.

Carrier pigeons as a motive power for long distance communications…today!

Annals of anti-monopoly: Now in print. How we might reframe the monopoly question — anti-monopoly as a mode on inquiry (like liberalism, socialism, or republicanism) rather than a reflexive grievance: academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/...

Susie Pak had written on Morgan’s financial network; Jean Strouse is the go-to author for his cultural milieu; don’t overlook Vincent Carosso on his business activities

Now in print _Antimonopoly and American Democracy_, with essays by Richard White, Naomi Lamoreaux, Daniel Crane, Bill Novak, myself, and others. It high time we “reframed” the monopoly question to decenter consumer welfare and turn attention to democracy, freedom, and justice.

Annals of anti-monopoly: Horace Greeley, 1851: “Secure to each man so much land as one may use, and preserve the residue for the use and benefit of all….Savage improvidence and want of forecast are hardly more pernicious than civilized monopoly and exclusion; a wise policy would shun them both.”

Seth: good question. Answer: yes. I recommend that prospective Ph.D. students consult with prospective mentors via email, or (if they can visit in person) by setting up a meeting in office hours, and that they also reach out to current Ph.D. students who are in the same program, including mentees. .

Eric: can you explain? What is “What’s History.” Can I join?

Lee: agreed. Much rests on the context in which we evaluate concepts (or, if you will, keywords) like “regulatory capture.” I object to this framing: no regulation of US business before…1887? 1911? Some other date. Recent historical writing in “open access” orders reinforces this convention.

Lee: I agree that concepts and contexts change. But I am skeptical of the presumption by economists, widely echoed by others, that regulatory capture began at one relatively recent point in time. This presumes that the US “heritage” is pre-regulatory, which is misleading, reactionary, and false.

Thanks for this Ben — it is my impression the concept is often invoked to critique public policy — on the assumption that lawmakers are somehow impeding laudable (“natural”) economic processes. This is a very old idea. Not sure what is gained by focusing so narrowly on the very recent past?

Re DMs? No DMs on principle — interesting

Don’t forget the third volume in the (late) Judith Stein corpus — Lichtenstein and Stein, _Fabulous Failure_.

Ben: someone should do a keyword search. I may try myself. Part of the problem is the overemphasis in the secondary literature on the ICC. The story does not begin in 1887.

Can we send DMs on Bluesky?

Huntington merely echoes conventional wisdom. Novak (whose essay is useful) is oddly inattentive to 19th century municipal regulation, and like Kolko is too ICC-centric. Richard White is superb on the political legacy of railroad land grants — a key anti-monopoly concern. Back to the sources!

Beth: regulatory capture is as old as the republic. The idea that big business was UN-regulated before the ICC is fatuous—though popularized by many, including my advisors Al Chandler and McCraw. Letting economists write the narrative is a mistake: they intentionally distort to boost each other.

Thanks Lee! Eager to learn more about this app

The idea of regulatory capture is old as the republic. Anti-monopoly (eg general incorporation) was hailed as a remedy. The “octopus” cartoons began (in the 1870s) as a critique of legislative money grand (public lands for stock). What we would call capture and NOT bigness was the main concern.

Annals of anti-monopoly (continued): abolitionist Lydia M. Child, 1870: “I dislike all monopolies; and a monopoly of labor seems to me as wrong, in spirit and principle, as a monopoly of grain or fruit. For men to combine together to fix…the price of the article in which they deal, is monopoly…”