I write about the ascendancy of big business, how it corrupts our politics, and the emerging coalition of lawmakers trying to build a new economic vision for the country.
In 2023, this pitched battle against corporate power ramped up to new heights.
After decades of laissez-faire policies, private governments have sprung up under Washington’s nose, from tech giants to health care oligopolies, undercutting democratic sovereignty.
But members of the Biden administration are now going to war to reclaim the political power that’s been ceded to corporate boardrooms.
The administration in its first two years took steps to break from the old consensus by setting in motion a slate of reforms to restore antitrust enforcement, labor union density, and industrial policy. Those included installing Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter to lead at the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice, respectively, as well as unleashing a more vigilant National Labor Relations Board. Those measures also entailed passing both the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act.
This year, we saw those initiatives meet their first tests as they entered the implementation and enforcement stages where, policy-wise, the rubber meets the road.
Manufacturing began to return. Green investment surged, though not evenly and largely in red states, contrary to some expectations. Union organizing roared back to life. Antitrust enforcers reclaimed their powers by taking companies to court and setting rules to protect workers and consumers.
Putting the old political consensus out to pasture was only the first step. Jump-starting a new agenda with a coalition behind it that can deliver clear victories is, politically, an even more herculean task.
It’s especially difficult when you face militant and well-financed opposition from corporate America. Business groups of course object to this new policy agenda and are waging an all-out frontal assault to thwart it and stop the bleeding.
The stories I reported on this year are localized episodes and snapshots that offer a window into this epochal duel unfolding between reformers and the robber barons of this new Gilded Age.
Georgia
Over the summer, I was on the ground in Georgia reporting on the implementation of green industrial policies in a right-to-work state still controlled statewide by Republicans. On that trip, I wrote about a historic union victory at Blue Bird electric bus manufacturer near Macon. Workers received an assist from the Biden administration because of a union neutrality agreement the company was forced to sign in order to receive a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. Though organizers still faced a formidable anti-union campaign, workers told me the neutrality agreement constrained the tactics that management could employ.
I then traveled to Dalton, an ultra-conservative area represented by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and known as the carpet capital of the world. However, the town is now home to Qcells, a South Korean–owned solar producer that has expanded its operations because of the 45X tax credit from the Inflation Reduction Act. I interviewed workers onsite at Qcells about the meager quality of the jobs—though better than carpeting—and reported on the implications of the new employer on the area’s political trajectory.
Along the way, I caught wind of a scheme that Georgia’s governor, Brain Kemp (R), had instigated to make Georgia’s green transition into another anti-union crusade while enriching his donors. Kemp’s administration was offering state funds to steer green investment to Georgia and then using those state contracts for construction as a giveaway for Republicans donors.
The Trial of the Century
For over two months, I reported from inside the D.C. district courthouse on the first major monopolization case in 25 years. As the government laid out its case against Google, we learned about the inner workings of the tech giant’s business model and how the $26 billion in annual default agreements it signs with device makers, mobile carriers, and internet browsers are used to throttle competitors.
But the main story became the amount of secrecy in the trial. I witnessed the play-by-play as Google, with the help of a servile judge, tried to cut off public access to the trial of the century and drown out coverage of public evidence. Journalists and other public advocates fought back.
The Farm Bill
You’re going to be hearing a lot more about the farm bill in the next year. Congress kicked the can down the road by passing a congressional resolution to extend funding for another year. But that just buys time, and negotiations will start ramping up in the coming months.
This piece pulls back the curtain on the history of how the farm bill became a must-pass piece of bipartisan legislation for both urban and rural interests. It’s also a darker tale of how a radical New Deal program turned into a grab bag of subsidies for Big Ag.
This year, though, a group of reformers led by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) are trying to reconfigure the bill so that it serves public ends, not corporate interests.
In particular, this coalition is targeting a long-standing ag program called the checkoff, where small farmers are forced to pay a tax that then lines the pockets of lobbyists fighting against any efforts to heal ag monopolies.
Ag policy is one area where the Biden administration has come up short. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack has taken heat from outside groups for failing so far to deliver on restoring the hobbled Packers and Stockyards Act. Instead, his department is prioritizing a new program called Climate-Smart Commodities billed as green investment but that’s largely being used as another money pot for Big Ag.
Washington
To understand why our politics are so dysfunctional, it’s important to understand how Washington runs, during work hours and especially off the clock.
That’s what brought me to an Elvis-themed gala held at the National Portrait Gallery by the influential libertarian think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute. It was a spectacle too mesmerizing to pass up, though I didn’t make it inside for very long. The story is about how I got kicked out but also offers a glimpse at the corporate forces and their bedfellows on the right assembling to maintain the old consensus against the new one.
I also wrote about a series of scandals that roiled the most preeminent think tanks in the capital. The heads of both the Atlantic Council and Brookings failed to disclose conflicts of interest in their advocacy for foreign governments that gave them funding. These incidents pointed to a more widespread problem: Supposedly independent policy advocates frequently operate essentially as de facto lobbyists because of a lack of transparency about their organization’s funding.
