81971. A white house out more, a revolt in the streets and the untold history. That event is this thursday the 24th. You can find information about it and all of our happenings and events at twitter, facebook an instagram as well as powells. Co powells. Com. Tonight we are very excited to welcome hes an attorney political activist and antitrust and collections expert. A rising star on the left, her campaign for the near attorney general in 2018 was endorsed by bernie sanders, the New York Times and others. She was part of the team of lawyers that sued donald trump for allegedly violated the clause of the constitution. She sits on the board of the directors of the open markets institute and teaches law. In her new book, break them up recovering freedom from big gag, big tech and big money, she offers a call for liberals looking to find a common cause. She makes a compelling case that monopolies of the root cause of many of the issues that todays progressives care about. They derive economic inequality, hardly planet and limit the average citizens power and historically disenfranchise groups that bear the brunt of their shameful and irresponsible business practices. In order to build a Better Future we must eradicate monopolies from the private sector, and create new safeguards to prevent new ones from taking power. Joining in conversation is a columnist from the Washington Post, senior fellow at the brookings institution, professor at Georgetown University and visiting professor at harvard university. He is coauthor of the recent near times best seller, one nation after trump and why the white right went wrong pretty snow but code red how progressive and moderates can unite to save our country, he provides a blueprint for change that stresses the need for coalition and First Political orientation as it will be across the lines of race, region ethnicity. From democratic socialist to those who was once been called liberal republicans. Code red calls for shared commitment, decency and politics focus on freedom, fairness in the future. Encouraging progressives and moderates to sustain the unity for democrat victories in the 2018 election and offers a unifying model entered on solving problems, restoring dignity to those left behind in tackling issues like gun violence, low eight wages in healthcare. Its a pleasure to have you both here to join us in this conversation. They will be taking questions later on in our program. So you can use that q a button at the bottom of your screen there to submit those questions. We do ask you submit questions in the q a field rather than in the chat. We are so happy to have you both here to talk about these very needy and weighty conversations and topics. Thank you for joining us. Sweetie thanks much for having us. Smacks what a joy to be is where the great bookstores in our country. An infected zephyr has a great line in her book which we will get to about the difference between seeking a maximization. Bookstores are good oldfashioned moral profitseeking rather than profit maximization. I just want to say its a great joy to be here. We were talking before we went on that i first heard of this in 2003, the end of 2003, some of you may remember out there howard dean was raising all this money online. It was this brandnew thing. I said who is doug this . And they told me this brilliant twentysomething woman named zephyr teachout. I wanted to know who she was and where she got her really interesting name. And how she had pulled this off or it is real joy to be with you, to talk about this great book of yours. Guest it is such a pleasure to be with you. Its also remembering that. Give for covering the experiments and democracy we were engaged at the time. We will get into it. But i think there is really a deep shared theme here that has to do with freedom and dignity. In sort of recovering politics that really center themselves in these core values. And only when we move back in november these values, can we actually move forward. Anyway, im really grateful for you to during this conversation with me. Host thank you. Economic dignity is a core argument of this book, my book, code red. I felt economic dignity running through these pages of your boo book. I wanted to start was something i think is on the minds of a lot of people who might be watching this, which is the day after Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the fact that we are facing and normas court fight, that we actually should not be having until next year, in my view and i think in your view. Are planning a sixth conservative justice on the board is very disturbing to us both. But i think i want to start there with your book. Because, people talk a lot about issues. I think if we dont talk enough about the ways in which Court Decisions have in recent years really undercut our democracy itself. We can talk later about the citizens in the decision which you are cited both by the late John Paul Stevens in his dissent and then Justice Gildea goes after you which is a high honor and complement to you. But in the book you talk about how and t monopoly antitrust is fundamentally change, our notion of what it meant was change in the 1980s. We can go historically back a bit. He talked about how group of conservative judges particularly after opposer reinterpreted the meeting of antitrust. Let me just quote you at yourself. They reinterpreted antitrust laws as price protection tools. They rejected these laws were designed to curb despotism. What i want to do here is talk a bit about the fight over the court and how people thinking about it. How the interpretation of antitrust laws really changed along trajectory that goes back to the 1880s in our country. And certainly during a progressive. Absolutely. A brief bit about before reagan and then what reagan brought in. And the true judicial revolution and economic power. Which is, we are living in that legacy now. Before 1980 there is a really broad understanding that economic power, overly concentrated economic power was a risk to democracy. And there was a value in having decentralized power. There is a value in strictly enforcing antitrust laws. Even that way. Theres a couple compasses can emerge you said theres a risk that merger could lead to them having so much power that they effectively control entire industry. And then have that power seep into our political steer. Justice douglas said all forms of a private power tend to form into a government in and of themselves. There is just broad understanding that anti monopoly, antitrust is a democratic tool. In a key democratic tool. And when reagan came in, he had a few key agendas. One was eight notsosubtle agenda to restore was the language he would use. Very much an anti the rights agenda. And along with that, anti civil rights agenda he brought with his california wrecking crew recent baxter and others, a deregulatory agenda. But at the heart of that deregulatory agenda was changing antitrust. We talked about at the time. We see profiles of his Close Associates like baxter. They say there to agendas or overturning civil rights and changing antitrust laws. Why antitrust . But they made that a core part of their agenda. And reagan did a few things very quickly. One is he appointed enforcers did not what to enforce. Its something we are very familiar with right now with the trump administration. And the number of cases just radically dropped. And the enforcers started saying there is an antitrust case and theres there is a real problem with the threat of prices going up. But then he also just filled the courts. And among others appointed justice khalifa. But it wasnt just gildea. It was judges throughout the country who basically rewrote antitrust laws through judicial decisions. You dont need to be an expert in this area to understand a few basic things. One, antitrust laws because like constitutional. The key antitrust law, the sherman act is about as long as a first amendment. Its really short. Basically says you may not monopolize. So it like short portions of our constitution, justices and judges have an enormous impact. Because how they interpret what monopolize mean, shifted radically from the 70s to the 80s and 90s of today. And moved from understanding monopoly when theres too much market power to today when we only think about in terms of the prices are going to rise. So the real impact the human impact is weve been in a 40 year wave. You see in every industry. We are talking today, such a consequential decision i think it is wholly illegitimate to try to appoint, im hoping we can stop it, its hard. I justice at this moment. But while we talk about these other issues, remember that a justice economic theory, his or her understanding about the relationship between citizens, powers, and worker, that can have in a normas impact on inequality, on power and on our democracy. In the antitrust ideology of the rights, right now is basically why even have this . In fact warmer thing and then i want to turn back to you is, scalia actually during his appointments, during his confirmation hearings, was asked about antitrust. And what he said is, i never understood in law school. And later i realized i didnt need to because it doesnt make any sense anyway. It was a joke. But it shows how trivially they take this serious went i see as a core protection of citizens having power, not being governed by private corporations. So when i think youre discussing a bit, trust is so important to this coming because the standard conservative saying that they say all the time is liberals rewrite law from the bench. In fact, in your book you show some of the most radical rewrites of law have been done by conservatives. And i also think its so important to see these fights in terms of democracy. When you look at Citizens United, a decision that undercut laws against the money power, the power of money and politics. And then the decision that undercut the Voting Rights act. It was empowering very wealthy people and disempowering average americans import people. Its an astonishing use of power. That was done by conservatives overturning years of precedents. Guest youre absolutely right. Both of those cases where such divergence from precedent. In Shelby County it was a shocking amount of creativity that is a generous word, on Justice Roberts apart. And actually the preceding case of Citizens United, when i started writing about corruption because you can see the writing on the wall. It was when Justice Roberts its really roberts court. Its a very corporate court. Roberts acted impatient with the idea that corruption could be anything but an explicit quid pro quo. He said in a 2007 opinion, enough is enough why are we even talking about corruption . When he did that, ask aaliyah has done and some really consequential decisions and antitrust law he was engaged in terrible history, disrespectful history, bad law bad history bad precedents. It is not conservative in a sense. It is a real imposition. A form of corporate government, and what comes across in these cases and im glad you show the connection is there really dismissive of democracy. And think i will the private sector will work it all out. And as we see, the normas cost of corporate concentration in corporate ruthlessness in the corporate sector is not working it out. We believe in democracy, that is a core value in a lot of these justices inks its a dirty game pretty think that is one of the things that comes through in Citizens United. You mention the true decisions that haunt me Shelby CountyCitizens United, want to ask you about the most interesting word in your book. And what i took to be the most interesting and liberating sentence in your book. The most interesting word in the book, is chicken his nation. Not an idea you are not talking about kfc or chickfila. If you could talk about chicken is asian. But what i took to be the most liberating sentence in the book, we can build any kind of Corporate Law and Market Structure we want. I just think of such an important idea. Because we hear people talk about the markets. The market says this, the market demands that. Is it this way one kind of market. One set of rules for the market. When in fact we can structure markets and a great many ways. In structure power within the market in a great many ways. That is in a sense what your book is all about. These two thoughts i think link, chicken is asian in the sentence i wrote pretty she could talk about that a bit. It is the single most important sentence in the book as we can do what we want. So thank you. And interestingly, it is something where you see left, right, moderate. Convalesce and a sense of inevitable ism. Im a progressive democrat very open democrat. But taxation alone as it got this note tax the elements of i it. Organize markets in all kinds of different ways. We lived in lawton different kinds of Market Structures. One might think about it, in your head you have a natural metaphor or a mechanical metaphor for the market . I think a lot of people have a somewhat natural metaphor. They chided treatment. As opposed to thinking about mike a car. What do these kinds of things it does these kind of things. You want the machine to do Something Else it will do Something Else. I think that is really importan important. I think its something we all understand. We all go to a Farmers Market think there are no rules here. The question is, what are the rules . And what kind values to those rules represents . So chicken is asian, one of the ways i wanted to, one area think people get the most certified glaze over as with big tech. I think we all see happening gig economy taking over more and more areas for work. Its inevitable and just a fact. The reason we start with talk about chicken is asian, chicken farming in particular zoning demystify the market. Two different kinds of structure and how chickens are sold even if you dont know any farmers and i do know some , im from a rural area, people dont feel intimidated talk about Market Structure when it comes to farming. So what weve seen in the chicken industry is reagans judges coming in and reinterpreting antitrust laws. This radical merger wave Work Companies that are key distributors like tyson, pilgrims, by a fall of their competitors are only three or four left. They start control a region and then by ancillary Services Like the eggs were not just distributors we also own the consultants to tell you how you have to treat your chickens. And so chicken farmers, theoretically they look free from a distance. They look like Small Businessmen and women. But when you actually talk to them they say if i want to get my chicken to market i have do whatever they say. I have to use their feet, user eggs, user counselors. But it doesnt stop there. They also degree does not talk to the neighbors, not to find out how much their neighbors are paid, the other chicken farmers. Agreed to get paid different amounts every month. And not know why theyre getting paid different amounts every month. And so they are stuck in a state of really incredible anger. A lot of chicken farmers i talked to, and writing about depression and suicide more than i expected. It is really important think about the human impacts of these economic structures. Chicken farmers feel paranoid. An overwhelming, debilitating anger at their distributors. Because they do not know when they have a bad month whether something they did, because the era tater spoke out politically against tyson . Or because the weather was better because tysons experiments in getting 50 chicken farmers one kind of seed and another in their subjects in the experiment they dont know about. And that experience that relationship of tysons to a chicken farmer, i argue, is a term i did not make up the great journalist Chris Leonard wrote about it. Its the other me industries that said we should chicken eyes. So beef and pork is starting the same thing. That is what is happening. The same thing at uber driver up with the driver to the platform for that is whats happening with amazon sellers. Amazon can make or break them. They need to be on amazon to sell night need to know why erwin being highly ranked or poorly ranked. The thing theyre releasing right now is a restaurant relationship to delivery apps. Especially during a pandemic. If you are a restaurant, if you are not on a delivery app its like a chicken farmer not been able to provide through tyson. The restaurant cannot stick five because its a significant percentage. That means can use its contractual power to say hey restaurant, give me all of your data and i would treat you in different ways and you dont hire being treated. And i wanted to really humanize what monopolization does. Because this is only possible when you only have a few players in the game. If a chicken farmer says i dont like tyson going to them and their five distributors, tyson cant do that anymore. If there are real competitors in the higher market, uber drivers cant negotiate and go elsewher elsewhere. Its really important to back to the basics of power. Im not telling you anything people in 1960 did not understand about antimonopoly pretty stressed that we forgot it. That we should think about decentralizing power. Only we decentralize power can workers and Small Business owners regain their relative power. There were already several good questions that i want to get to. I want to step back and take a look historically. I remember years ago i was talking with two other friends and all three of us thought of ourselves as progressive in one way or another. One of them was very pro market anti monopoly. Your tongue with the 1912 election. One of the great elections in our countrys history were where William Howard taft was a conservative. Woodrow wilson although racist and terrible in many ways was a progressive and other ways, he was a break up monopolies guy in response to concentration. At 6 of the vote was a democratic socialist. Teddy roosevelt was a new nationalist. But he really thought breaking up the monopolies might n