On January 3, the 120th United States Congress will convene, ushered into power with a mandate to solve some very specific problems for the American people. At the risk of simplifying the complex array of issues that can sway a national election, the issues that appear to have most motivated voters — an unaffordable economy, corruption, and a backlash against data centers and AI — can all be traced back to an economy dominated by corporate monopolies and the ways those monopolies raise prices, rob workers of fair wages, and infringe on our communities.
The poll numbers are incredibly stark. Ashley Koning, the director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University, found that nine out of ten voters said that the cost of living was a crucial or major factor in how they voted. Another nine out of ten voters said corruption motivated them. Meanwhile, a separate CBS News exit poll showed that three-quarters of all voters opposed data centers in their communities, and a majority of voters said they believe AI will do more to hurt society than to help it.
Data centers are indeed the most obvious manifestation of how corporate power has made life worse for many Americans. The AI they generate ends jobs and lowers wages. They steal tax dollars with promises of jobs and economic prosperity that never materialize. They raise our electric bills, flood our air with pollution, and their developers and Big Tech backers pressure politicians to strip away local, democratic control of our communities.
But the monopolization of our economy, and the real hardships corporate control creates for many Americans, extends far beyond data centers. The unelected kings of how and where we shop — Amazon and Walmart — are gouging shoppers under the ruse of low prices and selection. Agriculture monopolies have turned the bedrock jobs of growing food and raising livestock in America into the prairie equivalent of driving an Uber, working for crumbs with little control over their work or livelihoods. The degradation and fracturing of work has spread like a virus across the economy. Small businesses are perpetually under fire, as a cabal of dominant retailers and suppliers use their power like a cudgel against their smaller rivals. Everything costs more while work pays less. That’s how we got a tidal wave election. Now, it’s up to the incoming Congress to act. The American people need lawmakers to wield power, not platitudes.
Recently, Harvard sociology professor Theda Skocpol wrote a letter to the political forum Talking Points Memo, suggesting that Democrats in power should avoid sweeping, omnibus bills that are difficult to talk to voters about, and instead pass legislation targeting specific issues or industries that get to the heart of problems and are easy for folks to understand. I strongly agree, which is why on election night I began building a list of some straightforward, popular things Congress should do to constrain and break down pockets of corporate control and return power to shoppers, workers, and communities. Here is a (not comprehensive!) list of ways Congress could begin to address our monopolized economy.
Break up agriculture monopolies. The midterm election saw Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska elect Democratic and Independent governors, senators, and attorneys general for the first time in years, if not decades. Voters in these breadbasket states rejected policies that have gutted small family farms and independent ranchers and growers, and the communities they support. Congress must respond to the longtime pleas of farmers and rural communities, and pass legislation to break up entrenched pockets of corporate power in meatpacking, seeds, chemicals, and other agricultural products, to restore fairness and competition to a cornerstone American industry. One great example is the Family Grocery and Farmer Relief Act, legislation introduced by the likely head of the House Antitrust Subcommittee, Rep. Rebecca Balint, that would break up monopoly meatpackers while supporting small businesses and cooperatives who want to enter the business.
Enact a nationwide moratorium on hyperscale data centers. No single industry and issue conjured more anger among voters than data centers and the AI technologies they allow. Data centers are deeply unpopular everywhere; voters enacted data center bans, moratoriums and restrictions in Florida, Kansas, Ohio, Illinois, and New Jersey — everywhere data centers were on the ballot. They’re unpopular for good reasons. The drive up electric bills, pump out air, water, and noise pollution. While local control over when, where, and how data centers are built and operate, the industry is screaming for nationwide rules that protect the public from data centers’ myriad dangers. Until Congress can decide on what exactly those rules look like, lawmakers should pass a moratorium on data center construction that would pause building around the country. Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced such a bill last session. What seemed a fringe idea when Sanders introduced the bill now feels far more possible; In the days following the election, Republican firebrand Sen. Josh Hawley backed those calls for a pause on new data centers.
Pass the Fair Prices for Local Businesses Act. Price discrimination has become a viable business strategy across the retail industry, crushing small businesses for crucial, life-saving products like food and prescription drugs. That’s because enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Act, which bans anti-competitive price discrimination, has been hamstrung by a number of factors, including difficult legal precedents and limitations in the bill’s language. The Fair Prices for Local Businesses Act, introduced by Sen. Chris Murphy, would reform the act by applying the law to services such as credit card processing, insurance, and utilities, and by amending the language of the bill to ensure powerful retailers can be held responsible for soliciting unfair, discriminatory prices from their suppliers.
Pass the CLEAN Mergers Act. Mega-mergers have become the norm under the Trump Administration. So has political corruption, and that corruption has tainted the decision to approve numerous corporate deals, as well as important merger challenges that began under the Biden Administration but ended after backroom deals, sometimes involving Trump himself. The CLEAN Mergers Act, introduced by Sen. Cory Booker, would instruct the antitrust agencies and states to re-examine any merger valued at over $10 billion and approved by the Trump Administration and, if necessary, to unwind those deals to restore competition where it has been lost. Congress should make passing the CLEAN Mergers Act a priority, to both undo dangerous corporate concentration, and to send a message to dealmakers and C-Suite executives that the administration’s rubber-stamping of anti-competitive mergers is over. The bill also does things I like and think should apply to all merger reviews anyway, including ensuring a merger doesn’t lead to mass layoffs.
Investigate persistent monopolization and corporate concentration. Levels of corporate concentration have increased significantly over the past several decades. Today, many industries are dominated by a small number of companies; in some cases, just one or two companies have cornered an industry, cutting off competition, raising prices of shoppers, robbing workers of fair wages, and robbing communities of local control and self-reliance. Congress should use its investigative powers to examine levels of corporate concentration in crucial industries such as agriculture, telecommunications, consumer goods, e-commerce, cloud computing, transportation, and so on, and provide legislative options for reducing concentration in industries where monopolies or oligopolies have dominated for years.
Prohibit pharmacy benefit managers from owning prescription drug retailers. Prescription drug middlemen, called pharmacy benefit managers, have used their integration with major drug retailers to rip off independent pharmacies and raise drug prices to the public. Their self-dealing and discrimination has forced hundreds of small drug stores out of business, robbing communities of access to life-saving drugs. Congress should follow the lead of states like Arkansas and Tennessee and prohibit these middlemen from owning retail pharmacies, including chain drug stores and mail-order pharmacies. CVS deciding to break itself up doesn’t solve the problem; only clear, federal rules can ensure fair and open competition in the retail drug industry. Congress should immediately pass the Break Up Big Medicine Act, introduced last year by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley, which would end conflicts of interest and self-dealing by ensuring those pharmacy middlemen can’t own their own retail drug businesses.
Preserve the right to fair and transparent prices. The forces of antimonopoly seem to be circling around algorithmic pricing and its kin. Five states and a growing number of cities and towns have passed laws or ordinances restricting the use of algorithms to set consumer prices. Some of those bans target consumer-facing price discrimination, in which corporations use one’s personal data to set the price they’re charged. Many others companies from using an algorithm to fix prices between would-be competitors. And others prohibit dynamic or surge pricing, where a company (often one with a lot of power in an industry) charges shoppers different prices based on perceived demand or need — for example, when Uber charges riders more when the algorithm thinks they need a ride back home, or back to an airport after a trip. The Federal Trade Commission is currently kicking the tires on a an enforcement policy around personalized pricing, and Congress has recently held a hearing on unfair, AI-driven pricing algorithms. Now’s the time for Congress to guarantee a fair and transparent price for every shopper. One well-drafted bill could ban all three types of algorithmic pricing in a sweeping win for consumers.