Jul 16, 2026 · 54 min · 19 segments
Matt Stoller and discusses America's Monopoly rule. Get Early Access on Substackhttps://sgcarney.substack.com/Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/gz2fFkj6Mw
Matt StollerGuest
Scott CarneyHost
The, the, the New Deal era was about breaking the power of private oligarchs running our economy, what FDR called the informal economic government of the United States, which I always love that quote.
Um, so, uh, we-- I- what, what happened, and it's really weird, right? To think about this tradition.
It's a tradition I didn't know about, and, um, [lips smack] I majored in history, but I love history, but I didn't know about it, which is, is just weird 'cause it's so central to who we are as a people.
The game, board game Monopoly, right? We all play it, and, like, we all know Monopoly largely from that, but that board game comes out of that anti-monopoly tradition.
Um, so in the 1960s and '70s, what happened was a countercultural movement that, um, where s- where intellectuals on both the right and the left made an argument that these, that the sort of traditional class-based fights, um, [lips smack] the, the fights against the robber barons, right, the, the Teddy Roosevelt type of thing, that those were not really-- They were more aesthetic than anything else.
They were just sort of like what Richard Hofstadter was one of these intellectuals, said it was actually just a fear of a kind of diminishing, uh, Anglo-Saxon culture.
It was actually just, like, a fear of immigrants, but they placed it on the railroad barons, but it wasn't really about railroads.
And they used these kind of sociological tools that they imported from, from Europe and said, "Oh, like, actually, the, the fights were not really over money." Americans have all been capitalist, um, and they've always been capitalist, and there's really no differences between, you know, the different variants.
Like, they maybe disagreed slightly on certain tax policies or whatever, but actually, there was always this consensus for capitalism.
And [lips smack] on the left, uh, you know, you also had John Kenneth Galbraith, who was a major intellectual figure, brave, courageous oppos- uh, opponent of the Vietnam War, and an economist who said that, you know, there's really no little difference between the Soviet Union and America.
There's really, um, uh, a lot of the things that we're going through are kind of inevitable outgrowths of technology.
Uh, the, the, the political fights over, over markets and power is not, it, it, this is kind of like not, it was never really a thing.
And what happened-- And on the right, they had sort of similar, but arguments that, that had a kind of different flavor.
They, they adopted the kind of idea of inevitability, but what they said is, look, if big companies are big, it's because they're really good at what they do.
Um, now the traditional American populist approach or the traditional American approach was to say, "Hey, the way we regulated our corporations is we said, 'If you're too, if you're too powerful, that's bad.' And what we wanna do to make sure you're not as powerful is traditional checks and balances, AKA competition." That's how we did the checks and balances thing in the commercial sector.
And we also said, it's in the Bible, [lips smack] "No man may serve two masters." Try to reduce conflicts of interest if you can.
In the '60s and '70s and '80s when they said, "Oh, uh, actually power is not a thing," and Americans have always agreed, um, there was never really, we never really had issues with robber barons.
The, the, the New Deal era was about breaking the power of private oligarchs running our economy, what FDR called the informal economic government of the United States, which I always love that quote.
Um, so, uh, we-- I- what, what happened, and it's really weird, right? To think about this tradition.
It's a tradition I didn't know about, and, um, [lips smack] I majored in history, but I love history, but I didn't know about it, which is, is just weird 'cause it's so central to who we are as a people.
The game, board game Monopoly, right? We all play it, and, like, we all know Monopoly largely from that, but that board game comes out of that anti-monopoly tradition.
Um, so in the 1960s and '70s, what happened was a countercultural movement that, um, where s- where intellectuals on both the right and the left made an argument that these, that the sort of traditional class-based fights, um, [lips smack] the, the fights against the robber barons, right, the, the Teddy Roosevelt type of thing, that those were not really-- They were more aesthetic than anything else.
They were just sort of like what Richard Hofstadter was one of these intellectuals, said it was actually just a fear of a kind of diminishing, uh, Anglo-Saxon culture.
It was actually just, like, a fear of immigrants, but they placed it on the railroad barons, but it wasn't really about railroads.
And they used these kind of sociological tools that they imported from, from Europe and said, "Oh, like, actually, the, the fights were not really over money." Americans have all been capitalist, um, and they've always been capitalist, and there's really no differences between, you know, the different variants.
Like, they maybe disagreed slightly on certain tax policies or whatever, but actually, there was always this consensus for capitalism.
And [lips smack] on the left, uh, you know, you also had John Kenneth Galbraith, who was a major intellectual figure, brave, courageous oppos- uh, opponent of the Vietnam War, and an economist who said that, you know, there's really no little difference between the Soviet Union and America.
There's really, um, uh, a lot of the things that we're going through are kind of inevitable outgrowths of technology.
Uh, the, the, the political fights over, over markets and power is not, it, it, this is kind of like not, it was never really a thing.
And what happened-- And on the right, they had sort of similar, but arguments that, that had a kind of different flavor.
They, they adopted the kind of idea of inevitability, but what they said is, look, if big companies are big, it's because they're really good at what they do.
Um, now the traditional American populist approach or the traditional American approach was to say, "Hey, the way we regulated our corporations is we said, 'If you're too, if you're too powerful, that's bad.' And what we wanna do to make sure you're not as powerful is traditional checks and balances, AKA competition." That's how we did the checks and balances thing in the commercial sector.
And we also said, it's in the Bible, [lips smack] "No man may serve two masters." Try to reduce conflicts of interest if you can.
In the '60s and '70s and '80s when they said, "Oh, uh, actually power is not a thing," and Americans have always agreed, um, there was never really, we never really had issues with robber barons.
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