POLITICAL SCIENCE

Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy

by Matt Stoller
S. & S. Oct. 2019. 608p. notes. bibliog. index. ISBN 9781501183089. $29.99; pap. ISBN 9781982115340. $18; ebk. ISBN 9781501183096. POL SCI
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Journalist Stoller (Open Markets Inst. Fellow, former senior policy adviser and budget analyst, U.S. Senate Budget Committee) tackles a complicated story in this debut. He leads off by noting that, until the 1970s, Congress vigilantly protected Americans from the dominating effects of corporate and bank monopolies, seeing that competition was a way to prevent tyranny. But a new generation of legislators who had not lived through the Great Depression failed to understand the dangers of concentrating economic power, and unwittingly allowed, and even encouraged, the creation of monopolies. Stoller’s insightful analysis shows how the composition and values of members of Congress on both sides of the political divide have allowed monopoly power to dominate American business and politics.
VERDICT This book will strike a chord with those who lived through the Great Recession and experienced frustration at the injustice of bankers and corporations being bailed out while so many lost their homes and livelihoods.
Reviewed by Carol Elsen, Univ. of Wisconsin, Whitewater Libs , Sep 01, 2019
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