The modern antitrust movement, sometimes called the neo-Brandeisians after the former Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis, had a major influence on the Biden administration. Now that Donald Trump has returned to power, what’s next? Over at the new publication The Argument, Matt Bruenig has a critical review of what he calls the urtext of the modern antitrust […]
Economic Policy
Posted inEconomic Policy
How Scott Bessent Enables Oligarchy
After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the government began cracking down on hidden transfers of wealth. The purpose was to prevent money laundering that might finance terrorism. Some of this was codified in the USA PATRIOT Act. After the financial collapse of 2008, other safeguards were added. All this strengthened the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement […]
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Brown Stage Capitalism
Doctorow coined the term “enshittification” in 2022, though it was hardly a new phenomenon even then. In granting apps the right to wield the absurdities of intellectual property law to legally bully their users, the government emboldened tech founders to view their companies as exempt from laws and regulations.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
America’s Greatest Mistake
This article appears in the October 2025 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here. The World’s Worst Bet: How the Globalization Gamble Went Wrong (And What Would Make It Right) By David J. Lynch PublicAffairs For a time, globalization was synonymous with utopia: the untrammeled flow of capital across borders, new markets waiting to be opened, the growth of developing […]
Posted inPolitics
How Mamdani’s Predecessors Built Democratic Socialism
A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin’s Freedom Budget is the key to understanding the appeal of the Democratic nominee for NYC mayor.
Posted inEconomic Policy
Supermarket Shaping
Critics say Zohran Mamdani’s public grocery store proposal will never work. But Mamdani’s idea isn’t the problem—market consolidation is.
Posted inTAP
H-1B Disruption
Today on TAP: It’s the right target, but a $100,000 visa fee is a characteristically bizarre Trumpian remedy.
Posted inTAP
Bessent’s Bizarre Bailout
Today on TAP: Argentina will get U.S. help despite its perverse economic policies, only because fellow economic pervert Trump and Argentina’s Milei are soulmates. It won’t work.
Posted inEconomic Policy
Big Banks Behaving Badly
Decades of consolidation have made large financial institutions the primary partners for small businesses. Two case studies show how banks destroy businesses with automated systems, rather than personal relationships. Meanwhile, America’s relatively meager safeguards are being radically dismantled.
Posted inAmerica and the World
This Greenland Is Red
The small island nation has one of the largest and most successful portfolios of state-owned companies in the world. What?
