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Anti-monopoly and Regulated Industries

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Big Monopoly Caricature

Welcome to the LPE AMRI webpage! Since its inception, the LPE Project has focused on challenging concentrated economic and political power. In 2020 and 2021, we hosted the Anti-Monopoly and Regulated Industries (AMRI) Summer Academy. Our AMRI faculty, drawing on cutting-edge scholarship in law, economics, and social science, imparted an understanding of the unique challenges of 21st century corporate power and ways to confront it.

In order to further this work, we are sharing the AMRI Academy lectures with anyone who would like to view them. The videos are divided into two parts. The first part, “Foundations,” frames the problem of monopoly, the history of anti-monopoly and public utility traditions, and the modern politics of antitrust law. The second part, “Applications,” analyzes corporate power in specific sectors: banking and finance, technology, labor, and healthcare and pharmaceuticals.

You can track your progress in the course by checking the boxes once you have completed a session. So long as you don’t erase your cookies, the webpage will save your spot. Happy viewing!

AMRI Course Overview

Part 1:

AMRI Foundations

The AMRI approach recognizes that the challenges of concentrated private power require solutions beyond antitrust law—particularly the narrow interpretation of antitrust law that has prevailed in recent decades. In doing so, the AMRI approach revives many of the insights of older legal, political, and economic traditions of reform, but also offers fresh insights given the radically different political tensions and realities of the neoliberal era. The first half of the AMRI Academy explores both the scale of the problem of monopoly concentration in the United States and some of the key legal tools that have the potential to address that problem. Week 1 highlights monopoly power’s influence on the U.S. economy and society and begins to surface the transformations in law that have enabled the growth of private corporate power. Week 2 dives further into the conservative and neoliberal ideological projects that have reshaped antitrust law and regulatory policy, blunting these tools’ ability to exert democratic control over concentrated private power. Week 3 explores the history of public utility law, its central place in the Progressives’ vision of the “social control of business,” and its contemporary promise as an anti-monopoly tool. Week 4 explores the origins of the inadequacies of contemporary antitrust law and offers more democratic alternatives.
Week 1:

Contemporary Problems in Anti-Monopoly and Regulated Industries I: Framing the Problem

Faculty: Amy Kapczynski, Suresh Naidu, Sandeep Vaheesan

Week 2:

Contemporary Problems in Anti-Monopoly and Regulated Industries II: How We Got Here

Faculty: Amy Kapczynski, Corinne Blalock, Jay Varellas

Week 3:

Unpacking the Anti-Monopoly Toolkit I: “The Progressive Tradition of Antimonopoly & Public Utility”

Faculty: William Novak

Week 4:

Unpacking the Anti-Monopoly Toolkit II: Antitrust and Competition

Faculty: Frank Pasquale

Part 2:

Applications

The second half of the AMRI Academy applies the anti-monopoly and regulatory tools introduced in Part 1 to specific areas of economic life. In Week 5, scholars introduce a variety of approaches to create a more fair and democratic financial system, one in which the public plays a greater role in the allocation of money, capital, and credit. Week 6 focuses on technology platforms, exploring the antitrust, public utility, and other regulatory tools that can be used to not only mitigate the harms of unaccountable corporations, but also promote democratic innovation. Week 7 examines some of the historical and contemporary tensions between anti-monopoly law and labor organizing—as well as proposals for building the countervailing power of workers in increasingly concentrated industries. Finally, Week 8 unearths the limits of purportedly “market-based” approaches to health care and pharmaceuticals, opening the door to more equitable and effective regimes for the provisioning of healthcare and life-saving medicines.
Week 5:

Applications I: Banking and Finance

Faculty: Mehrsa Baradaran, Saule Omarova, Morgan Ricks

Week 6:

Applications II: Technology

Faculty: Frank Pasquale

Week 7:

Applications III: Labor and Anti-Monopoly

Faculty: Kate Andrias, Sandeep Vaheesan

Week 8:

Applications IV: Health Care and Pharmaceuticals

Faculty: Allison K. Hoffman, Amy Kapczynski

Additional Resources
Organizational Resources:
This document also includes information about other organizations working in and around the LPE and anti-monopoly spaces. This list of resources was prepared in consultation with the current and past members of the AMRI Faculty Planning Committee.
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Expanded AMRI Reading List:
This is an expanded version of reading list used in the first AMRI course in Summer of 2020. It contains both the required readings and a significant number of suggested and related readings. It is a living document that will continue to evolve as we go through AMRI 2021. The current version was last updated October 2020.
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