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One of the more interesting debates in American politics this year has been around a theory of power. The brouhaha began with Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundance, which struck a nerve with the “anti-monopoly left.” The book never advocates for monopolies, but nor do the authors look into the camera and say “I am a trust buster now.” This was enough to draw the ire of Zephyr Teachout: I think that we should be focusing Democratic politics, and politics in general, on the problem of concentrated power and the way in which concentrated power is making it impossible to do things and also really crushing our democracy. We really do have an oligarchy problem. And the antimonopoly tool kit is a response to that. There’s something to this. A lot of good things really are hard to do in America: building housing, delivering clean energy, developing new technologies. And part of why it’s all so hard is that powerful interests are blocking progress. The abundists claim that much of the block

One of the more interesting debates in American politics this year has been around a theory of power. The brouhaha began with Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundance, which struck a nerve with the “anti-monopoly left.” The book never advocates for monopolies, but nor do the authors look into the camera and say “I am a trust buster now.” This was enough to draw the ire of Zephyr Teachout: I think that we should be focusing Democratic politics, and politics in general, on the problem of concentrated power and the way in which concentrated power is making it impossible to do things and…

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