Wolf Money(book recommendation)

 

BREAK’EM UP, recovering our freedom from Big AG,Big Tech and Big Money by Zephyr Teachout would have been mistaken for a socialist party manifesto. The book with foreword by Democrat Senator, Bernie Sanders set the tone for the content. Bernie is the firebrand representation of socialist movement in US and his anti big businesses resonate with a lot working class American. 

This book has similar favour to the previous book I had recommended “Post Corona Crisis to Opportunity” by Scott Galloway. The rhetoric against big tech was much stronger in this book which also included big businesses outside of the tech space. 

The author mention about the chickenization of the American working class where big business had taken away much of workers’ rights due to discouragement of union movement by some big companies. The power of union and collective bargaining had weaken considerably over the years. Not only workers are affected by the shift, small business owners are under threat by ever increasing bargaining power of big companies. He sighted an e.g in the farm industry where farmers had no choice but to sign a draconian agreement with that few big companies which dominated the industry. Chicken farmer had to sell their produces to the only big poultry company at the low price determined by the big company even as costs of rearing chicken had went up substantially. Growers had to buy seeds and fertilisers from the dominant company. They are required not to share the detail of their agreement with their neighbours or risk of a total shut out and expensive lawsuits initiated by the leading seeds company. Most farmers went into depression and suicidal case are common across farming communities in US due to their inability to earn enough to provide for themselves and their family.

The author also saw the sea change in the US legal system where private court like arbitration institution  replacing public court. The change is most detrimental to consumers and workers where no class action can be imposed on big businesses. There is also a cap on how much claim they could be awarded by the company in arbitration. All settlement had to be kept private. Arbitration provide lower cost and quicker solution to legal woes for big companies. Those are the very reason why Arbitration is the prefer method use by big corporation to silence the critic. No dirty laundry were washed in public eyes due to none disclosure. As individual fear lawsuit from the company. Arbitration win by employees against big businesses are few and far between. Arbitration firm are mostly appointed by big businesses. Guess which agenda would they sided? Arbiters in US are not public judge which the later need to be accountable for their judgement in public courts. Arbiters had no such stigma. 

The author advocated setting up anti trust agencies to go after big businesses that display monopolistic behaviour. The third hand(government) is critical in balancing the odd which in recent year had tip in favour of big businesses. One of the way is to increase public resources for public institutions like the courts and FDA. There are many interesting chapters in the books. I can’t possibly mention everyone. This book is worthy of a read. The book goes onto Lone Wolf recommendation for its insight into some dirty secrets on how Corporate America gain an edge and sometime at the detriment to small businesses, consumers, employees and against public good in pursuit for bigger profit. 

(Contents)

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