The Second Gilded Age
YAGMAN PLLC is built to enforce the antitrust laws.
We have taken on nearly every industry, and will continue to do so to the benefit of Americans of every socioeconomic class and in every market across the country.
At the close of the Industrial Revolution, economic growth in the United States became highly concentrated under the control of the few so that the new systems of urban and industrialized development could be monetized against the many.
As the monopolies and trusts of the late 1800’s arose, so too did bipartisan and mass opposition to the controls of the levers of power. United States Senator John Sherman introduced the Sherman Act, the country’s very first antitrust law which would serve as a check on corporate grasp on industry and the economy itself. At the time, the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 would be called the “comprehensive charter of economic liberty” akin to an economic bill of rights — eventually, the law’s two main tenets would make unlawful abusive monopolization of business and restraints of trade by one or more firms.
Today, the Sherman Act remains one of the very last checks on corporate power. As Senator Sherman said then, and as holds true today: “if we will not endure a king as a political power, we should not endure a king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessities of life. If we would not submit to an emperor, we should not submit to an autocrat of trade, with power to prevent competition and to fix the price of any commodity.”
The Sherman Act’s intense penalties for violation serve as both a deterrent and corrective remedy against violations of the antitrust laws. In a free market economy, it remains highly necessary to ensure that firms who seek to rig it pay the consequences of their actions so that consumers, small businesses, their competitors, and municipalities can benefit from competitive pricing, brand competition, uninhibited innovation, and the positive effects that flow from with the ability to choose whom to engage in business with.
Inspired by the work of Senator Sherman, the boldness President Theodore Roosevelt, and the modern trustbusting enforcement style of Jonathan Kanter and Lina Khan, the work to act as a check this new digital, AI-driven gilded age has never been more critical. Powered by algorithms, dynamic pricing, and surveillance data, the concentration of economic power into the hands of digital robberbarons is even more of a threat to all of us than the monopolies of old ever were.
YAGMAN PLLC is built to enforce the antitrust laws.
We have taken on nearly every industry, and will continue to do so to the benefit of Americans of every socioeconomic class and in every market across the country.