THE CURSE OF BIGNESS

ANTITRUST IN THE NEW GILDED AGE

TIM WU

We live in an age of extreme corporate concentration, in which global industries are controlled by just a few giant firms–big banks, big pharma, and big tech, just to name a few. But concern over what Louis Brandeis called the “curse of bigness” can no longer remain the province of specialist lawyers and economists, for it spilled over into policy and politics, even threatening democracy itself. History suggests that tolerance of inequality and failing to control excessive corporate power may prompt the rise of populism, nationalism, extremist politicians, and fascist regimes. In short, as Wu warns we are in grave danger of repeating the signature errors of the twentieth century.

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” Erudite, energizing, outraging, funny and thorough.”

Cory Doctorow, Boing-Boing

“Wu writes with elegance and clarity, giving readers the pleasing sensation of walking into a stupendously well-organized closet.”

The New York Times

“A bracing intellectual tour de force.”

San Francisco Chronicle

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TIM WU is a policy professor at Columbia Law School, and a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. He worked on competition policy in the Obama White House and the Federal Trade Commission, served as senior enforcement counsel at the New York Office of the Attorney General, and worked at the Supreme Court for Justice Stephen Breyer. He is the author of The Master Switch (2010) and The Attention Merchants (2016).

from the cover