You’ve probably heard of Bowling Alone, the hugely influential 2000 book diagnosing our country’s malaise by Robert Putnam, the Harvard University political scientist. In it, Putnam showed that Americans’ stock of social capital—the fabric of a community’s trust and cooperation—had been plummeting since the 1950s, and that its decline was harming our well-being, personal relationships, […]
The Secret Monopoly Making Everything More Expensive
A two-decade fight with monopoly power in the payment system has arrived at a moment of truth, boiling down to one simple question: Will the courts bless price-fixing? Let’s hope not. Last week, Demand Progress, American Economic Liberties Project, Consumer Reports, and Small Business Majority asked a federal court to reject a proposed antitrust settlement that would bless the Visa-Mastercard duopoly in credit-card payment services. The case, officially known as In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation, grew out of a grievance merchants and consumers have nursed for decades that has curdled into something worse over…
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