Antitrust

This SDG seeks to examine the history of the regulation of big business through antitrust legislation, the lessons that may be drawn from that history and how those lessons may be applied to address the dominance of the largest tech companies in the 21st century economy The core book is Antitrust: Taking on Monopoly Power From the Gilded Age to the Digital Age by Senator Amy Klobuchar. The Minnesota Senator examines the history of monopolies in America from the Colonial period to the Gilded Age. She provides the background and policy considerations in the adoption of the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts. She surveys the significant opposition to monopolies from the Grangers to the Progressives. Klobuchar details the historic struggles against monopolies in the state legislatures, the Congress and in State and Federal Courts. In Klobuchar's view big business ultimately prevailed in the struggles to contain them to the detriment of not only our economy but our democracy. The book is an impressive work of scholarship and delivers a highly informative and readable description of antitrust policy and provides the historical background to conduct a discussion of what to do about a handful of technology companies that have grown to gargantuan size fueling concern across the political spectrum.