"Antitrust law has very rarely been used by workers to challenge anticompetitive employment practices. Yet recent empirical research shows that labor markets are highly concentrated, and that employers engage in practices that harm competition and suppress wages. These practices include no-poaching agreements, wage-fixing, mergers, covenants not to compete, and misclassification of gig workers as independent contractors. This failure of antitrust to challenge labor-market misbehavior is due to a range of other failures-intellectual, political, moral, and economic. And the impact of this failure has been profound for wage levels, economic growth, and inequality. In light of the recent empirical work, it is urgent for regulators, courts, lawyers, and Congress to redirect antitrust resources to labor market problems. This book offers a strategy for judicial and legislative reform"--

A trenchant account of an unacknowledged driver of inequality and wage stagnation in America: the failure of antitrust law to prevent the consolidation of employers, who use their market power to suppress wages. Since the 1970s, Americans have seen inequality skyrocket--and job opportunities stagnate. There are many theories of why this happened, including the decline of organized labor, changes in technology, and the introduction of tax policies that favored the rich. A missing piece of the puzzle is the consolidation of employers, which has resulted in limited competition in labor markets. This should have been addressed by antitrust law, but was not. In How Antitrust Law Failed Workers, Eric Posner documents the failure of antitrust law to address labor market concentration. Only through reforming antitrust law can we shield workers from employers' overwhelming market power. Antitrust law is well-known for its role in combatting mergers, price-fixing arrangements, and other anticompetitive actions in product markets. By opposing these practices, antitrust law enhances competition among firms and keeps prices low for goods and services. Less well-known, antitrust law also applies to anticompetitive conduct by employers in labor markets, which pushes wages below the competitive rate. Yet there have been few labor market cases or enforcement actions, and almost no scholarly commentary on the role of antitrust law in labor markets. This book fills the gap. It explains why antitrust law has failed to address labor market concentration, and how it can be reformed so that it does a better job. Essential reading for anyone interested in fighting economic inequality, How Antitrust Failed Workers also offers a sharp primer on the true nature of the American economyDLone that is increasingly uncompetitive and tilted against workers.

A New York Times Book Review Editor's Pick What Happens to Democracy When a Demagogue Comes to Power? "It is hard to imagine understanding the Trump presidency and its significance without reading this book.” —Bob Bauer, Former Chief Counsel to President Barack Obama What—and who—is a demagogue? How did America’s Founders envision the presidency? What should a constitutional democracy look like—and how can it be fixed when it appears to be broken? Something is definitely wrong with Donald Trump’s presidency, but what exactly? The extraordinary negative reaction to Trump’s election—by conservative intellectuals, liberals, Democrats, and global leaders alike—goes beyond ordinary partisan and policy disagreements. It reflects genuine fear about the vitality of our constitutional system. The Founders, reaching back to classical precedents, feared that their experiment in mass self-government could produce a demagogue: a charismatic ruler who would gain and hold on to power by manipulating the public rather than by advancing the public good. President Trump, who has played to the mob and attacked institutions from the judiciary to the press, appears to embody these ideas. How can we move past his rhetoric and maintain faith in our great nation? In The Demagogue’s Playbook, acclaimed legal scholar Eric A. Posner offers a blueprint for how America can prevent the rise of another demagogue and protect the features of a democracy that help it thrive—and restore national greatness, for one and all. “Cuts through the hyperbole and hysteria that often distorts assessments of our republic, particularly at this time.” —Alan Taylor, winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for History

The most important book on antitrust ever written. It shows how antitrust suits adversely affect the consumer by encouraging a costly form of protection for inefficient and uncompetitive small businesses.

A pioneering account of the surging global tide of market power—and how it stifles workers around the world In an era of technological progress and easy communication, it might seem reasonable to assume that the world’s working people have never had it so good. But wages are stagnant and prices are rising, so that everything from a bottle of beer to a prosthetic hip costs more. Economist Jan Eeckhout shows how this is due to a small number of companies exploiting an unbridled rise in market power—the ability to set prices higher than they could in a properly functioning competitive marketplace. Drawing on his own groundbreaking research and telling the stories of common workers throughout, he demonstrates how market power has suffocated the world of work, and how, without better mechanisms to ensure competition, it could lead to disastrous market corrections and political turmoil. The Profit Paradox describes how, over the past forty years, a handful of companies have reaped most of the rewards of technological advancements—acquiring rivals, securing huge profits, and creating brutally unequal outcomes for workers. Instead of passing on the benefits of better technologies to consumers through lower prices, these “superstar” companies leverage new technologies to charge even higher prices. The consequences are already immense, from unnecessarily high prices for virtually everything, to fewer startups that can compete, to rising inequality and stagnating wages for most workers, to severely limited social mobility. A provocative investigation into how market power hurts average working people, The Profit Paradox also offers concrete solutions for fixing the problem and restoring a healthy economy.

From the man who coined the term "net neutrality" and who has made significant contributions to our understanding of antitrust policy and wireless communications, comes a call for tighter antitrust enforcement and an end to corporate bigness.

At a time when tech giants have amassed vast market power, Jonathan Baker shows how laws and regulations can be updated to ensure more competition. The sooner courts and antitrust enforcement agencies stop listening to the Chicago school and start paying attention to modern economics, the sooner Americans will reap the benefits of competition.