Farmers are getting squeezed from the other side, too, because the food processors they sell their produce to are also consolidating into mega companies that have so much market power they can cut the prices they pay to farmers.
This doesnât mean lower food prices to you. It means more profits to the monopolists.
Monopolies All AroundÂ
America used to have antitrust laws that stopped corporations from monopolizing markets, and often broke up the biggest culprits. No longer. Itâs a hidden upward redistribution of money and power from the majority of Americans to corporate executives and wealthy shareholders.
You may think you have lots of choices, but take a closer look:
1. The four largest food companies control 82 percent of beef packing, 85 percent of soybean processing, 63 percent of pork packing, and 53 percent of chicken processing.
2. There are many brands of toothpaste, but 70 percent of all of it comes from just two companies.
3. You may think you have your choice of sunglasses, but theyâre almost all from one company: Luxottica â which also owns nearly all the eyeglass retail outlets.
4. Practically every plastic hanger in America is now made by one company, Mainetti.
5. What brand of cat food should you buy? Looks like lots of brands but behind them are basically just two companies.
6. What about your pharmaceuticals? Yes, you can get low-cost generic versions. But drug companies are in effect paying the makers of generic drugs to delay cheaper versions. Such âpay for delayâ agreements are illegal in other advanced economies, but antitrust enforcement hasnât laid a finger on them in America. They cost you and me an estimated $3.5 billion a year.
7. You think your health insurance will cover the costs? Health insurers are consolidating, too. Which is one reason your health insurance premiums, copayments, and deductibles are soaring.
8. You think you have a lot of options for booking discount airline tickets and hotels online? Think again. You have only two. Expedia merged with Orbitz, so thatâs one company. And then thereâs Priceline.
9. How about your cable and Internet service? Basically just four companies (and two of them just announced theyâre going to merge).
Why the Monopolization of America is a Huge Problem
The problem with all this consolidation into a handful of giant firms is they donât have to compete. Which means they can â and do â jack up your prices.
Such consolidation keeps down wages. Workers with less choice of whom to work for have a harder time getting a raise. When local labor markets are dominated by one major big box retailer, or one grocery chain, for example, those firms essentially set wage rates for the area.
These massive corporations also have a lot of political clout. Thatâs one reason theyâre consolidating: Power.
Antitrust laws were supposed to stop whatâs been going on. But today, theyâre almost a dead letter. This hurts you.
Weâve Forgotten History
The first antitrust law came in 1890 when Senator John Sherman responded to public anger about the economic and political power of the huge railroad, steel, telegraph, and oil cartels â then called âtrustsâ â that were essentially running America.
A handful of corporate chieftains known as ârobber baronsâ presided over all this â collecting great riches at the expense of workers who toiled long hours often in dangerous conditions for little pay. Corporations gouged consumers and corrupted politics.
Then in 1901, progressive reformer Teddy Roosevelt became president. By this time, the American public was demanding action.
In his first message to Congress in December 1901, only two months after assuming the presidency, Roosevelt warned, âThere is a widespread conviction in the minds of the American people that the great corporations known as the trusts are in certain of their features and tendencies hurtful to the general welfare.â
Roosevelt used the Sherman Antitrust Act to go after the Northern Securities Company, a giant railroad trust run by J. P. Morgan, the nationâs most powerful businessman. The U.S. Supreme Court backed Roosevelt and ordered the company dismantled.
In 1911, John D. Rockefellerâs Standard Oil Trust was broken up, too. But in its decision, the Supreme Court effectively altered the Sherman Act, saying that monopolistic restraints of trade were objectionable if they were âunreasonableâ â and that determination was to be made by the courts. What was an unreasonable restraint of trade?
In the presidential election of 1912, Roosevelt, running again for president but this time as a third party candidate, said he would allow some concentration of industries where there were economic efficiencies due to large scale. Heâd then heâd have experts regulate these large corporations for the public benefit.
Woodrow Wilson, who ended up winning the election, and his adviser Louis Brandeis, took a different view. They didnât think regulation would work, and thought all monopolies should be broken up.
For the next 65 years, both views dominated. We had strong antitrust enforcement along with regulations that held big corporations in check.
Most big mergers were prohibited. Even large size was thought to be a problem. In 1945, in the case of United States v. Alcoa(1945), the Supreme Court ruled that even though Alcoa hadnât pursued a monopoly, it had become one by becoming so large that it was guilty of violating the Sherman Act.
What Happened to Antitrust?
All this changed in the 1980s, after Robert Bork â who, incidentally, I studied antitrust law with at Yale Law School, and then worked for when he became Solicitor General under President Ford â wrote an influential book called The Antitrust Paradox, which argued that the sole purpose of the Sherman Act is consumer welfare.
Bork argued that mergers and large size almost always create efficiencies that bring down prices, and therefore should be legal. Borkâs ideas were consistent with the conservative Chicago School of Economics, and found a ready audience in the Reagan White House.
Bork was wrong. But since then, even under Democratic administrations, antitrust has all but disappeared.
The Monopolization of High Tech
Weâre seeing declining competition even in cutting-edge, high-tech industries.
In the new economy, information and ideas are the most valuable forms of property. This is where the money is.
We havenât seen concentration on this scale ever before.
Google and Facebook are now the first stops for many Americans seeking news. Meanwhile, Amazon is now the first stop for more than a half of American consumers seeking to buy anything. Talk about power.
Contrary to the conventional view of an American economy bubbling with innovative small companies, the reality is quite different. The rate at which new businesses have formed in the United States has slowed markedly since the late 1970s.
Big Techâs sweeping patents, standard platforms, fleets of lawyers to litigate against potential rivals, and armies of lobbyists have created formidable barriers to new entrants. Googleâs search engine is so dominant, âGoogleâ has become a verb.
The European Union filed formal antitrust charges against Google, accusing it of forcing search engine users into its own shopping platforms. And last June, it fined Google a record $2.7 billion.
But not in America.
Itâs Time to Revive Antitrust
Economic and political power cannot be separated because dominant corporations gain political influence over how markets are organized, maintained, and enforced â which enlarges their economic power further.
One of the original goals of the antitrust laws was to prevent this.
Big Tech â along with the drug, insurance, agriculture, and financial giants â is coming to dominate both our economy and our politics.
Thereâs only one answer:Â It is time to revive antitrust.
This article was originally published at RobertReich.org
Presidential history strongly warns of danger for this 
