Our monopolized choices

As the California June 7 primary gets closer (mail-in voting starts in three weeks) we are hearing more and more people complaining about a lack of choices among the five remaining presidential candidates. Even some of the candidates are grumbling about the “monopolistic” powers of the Democratic and Republican party machines.
Two of the candidates, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, are running on anti-establishment campaigns, calling for radical changes to Big Government, Big Business and Big Parties. From opposite ends of the political spectrum, both men are “mad as hell” and are leading mobs of “angry” voters who “don’t want to take it anymore.”
Well and good, but why should we be any madder about our politics than about our day-to-day economics or the same monopoly games that control our checking accounts, credit cards, food shopping, health care, transportation, fuel costs and leisure time options?
Never in America’s history has the means of production and finance rested in so few hands. The last time workers and families had such limited choices Teddy Roosevelt’s populist party led a breakup of the railroads, oil companies and New York banks during the “high rent – low wage” days of the Gilded Age of Rockefeller, Carnegie and J.P. Morgan (1870 – 1900).
Guess what? Those same oil and bank monopolies are back together again and the anti-trust laws that broke them up in the past do not exist anymore. Does “high rent – low wage” sound familiar?
If you are not sufficiently “mad as hell” right now to join a Trump or Bernie revolt, just call customer service at Comcast, AT&T, your online bank or PG&E. After being put on hold or transferred a half dozen times maybe you’ll be ready to feel the “Bern” or put on a Trump red baseball hat.
What does voting for president and getting abused by your cable TV provider have in common? Both are consequences of too much monopoly and the anti-democratic concentration of power and wealth. What good is political democracy without “economic democracy?”
Instead of voting every four years for a new president, maybe we’d rather vote for a new phone company or a Home Depot replacement. The abusive customer service at Comcast and elsewhere is due to a lack of competition and a real open market. Without competition, there is no corporate incentive to be nice, offer better service or fair prices.
Just look at our everyday lack of choices. We have come to live in an America where all of our toothpaste is made by two companies (and one of them owns Tom’s of Maine). Here in Sonoma County we may have Bear Republic and Lagunitas, but 80 percent of America’s beer is made by Anheuser-Busch or MillerCoors. Walmart sells 25 percent of all the groceries in the country and they dictate what food gets put on the shelf and what doesn’t.
Comcast, AT&T and Verizon control almost every American household’s telephone and internet connections. News media and entertainment choices are equally monopolized by Disney, FOX and iHeart Media (Clear Channel).
The Rockefellers are gone but BP, Shell, Exxon-Mobil and Chevron not only own our natural gas and oil production, but they also dominate our federal government’s energy and tax policies. One company, Monsanto, owns and controls 95 percent of the world’s corn and soybean seed production.
With the absence of anti-trust protections, both Main Street and Wall Street are being stampeded by a merger mania where big companies buy off competing startups, steal their inventions, raise consumer prices and consolidate or cut workers’ jobs.
This is not the free enterprise system that made America great. It is not the historic set of opportunities and values that created the American Dream. More than we might understand, our ballot choices are being limited. Vote for Teddy Roosevelt.
— Rollie Atkinson