America’s Major Market Power Problem — Episode 13 of the Building Local Power Podcast
Written by Nick Stumo-Langer
Welcome to episode thirteen of the Building Local Power podcast. For full transcript of the podcast, click here.
In this episode, Christopher Mitchell, the director of ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the ILSR and director of the Community-Scaled Economies initiative. The two discuss the environment for small businesses in the United States, especially noting the fact that the rate of small business creation is at one of its lowest rates since the early 1970s.
Additionally, Stacy and Chris talk about how the issue of small businesses and incentivizing their creation is a bipartisan issue that greatly benefits local economies.
“The economy has grown very concentrated, in a lot of industries, there are just two or three huge firms that control most of the market,” says Stacy Mitchell of the current dismal rate of small business creation. “There’s evidence that [these firms] use that power to actually exclude and block smaller businesses from being able to get to market, to have a fair opportunity to compete.”
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For the report that Stacy referred to this week, check out our report, Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business from August 2016.
Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business: The Case for Restoring America’s Once Robust Antitrust Policies
Here are Stacy and Chris’ reading recommendations from this week:
From Stacy:
Yale Law Review Journal’s “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox” by Lina Khan
From Chris:
“Anansi Boys” by Neil Gaiman Available from an independent retailer here: http://www.neilgaiman.com/works/Books/Anansi+Boys/.
View the full transcript of the podcast, below. If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage. Please give us a review and rating on iTunes or wherever you subscribe to podcasts.
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Audio Credit: Funk Interlude by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones — Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license.
Originally published at ilsr.org.
