Morgan Harper on Monopoly Power Over American Politics and Why Antitrust Laws are Imperative
Interview by Salvatore Laimo
This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.
RIFT Magazine: Hi everybody, my name is Salvatore Laimo, here with RIFT magazine. Today I have Morgan Harper joining me. She is the former candidate for Ohio's third congressional district and a consumer protection lawyer. She's also the Director of Policy and Advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project. Morgan, how are you feeling today?
Morgan Harper: Good, good. Great to be here.
RIFT: Nice. So, can you start off by telling me a bit about your work with the American Economic Liberties Project? What is their mission statement? How do they aim to take on current big tech monopolies?
MH: Yeah. So I connected with American Economic Liberties Project after I wrapped up my campaign for Congress, and you know the connection for me was…as part of my campaign here in Columbus, Ohio, I ran on (like a lot of progressive candidates) no corporate PAC money, the get-money-out-of-politics message, and it was interesting because during the campaign I had a lot of people that would say, “Well Morgan, you know, that's interesting you're saying that but your opponent is saying that you're getting, you know, money from individuals who live in California — like $500 from people who live in California. So, what's the difference? Isn’t it all just like outside money?” And it was interesting because, you know, when you run for office you hear all sorts of things, so you're prepared for many thoughts that are kind of misled in their ideas, but this one was interesting to me because it was very sincerely communicated. And I was like, “wow,” because actually if people believe that my friend who might live in California and give me a couple hundred dollars is the same as JP Morgan Chase giving my opponent $5,000, then people have a misunderstanding of power and that's a policy and educational problem for us as a movement, right? And so, you know, I connected with the Executive Director, Sara Miller, of American Economic Liberties Project, and we were talking about how I can help to support their work and kind of like educate folks about the corporate power, about the role that large corporations have over our political sphere, and also the economy and how that is driving inequality and a lot of other issues that we tend to focus on around racial and economic justice.
So, that's how I first connected with them. And it's just been a whirlwind, really, because as you probably know, and with big tech in particular, it's a movement whose time has come. So there's a lot of momentum to actually move real legislation, real policy changes throughout the federal government, at the state level, that can actually do something to check this corporate power, in particular the hold that large corporations have over our economy. So, it's exciting but we have a lot of work to do to make sure that we can take advantage of this moment.
RIFT: You appeared before Congress in February to give a testimony, and I believe there was a testimony for big tech on March 25th afterwards. Could you speak a little bit about your testimony, and what changed between your appearance and when tech gave their testimony on the following month?
MH: Yeah, so the hearing that I participated in was hosted by the Judiciary Committee's Antitrust Subcommittee, which is the same subcommittee that was responsible for producing a report towards the end of last year that really detailed the way that the business models of the big tech platforms — and we're talking mainly about Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple — are restricting economic activity. They have this gatekeeping power that allows them to increase their dominance to the detriment of other businesses and, really, all of us as consumers, as individuals, the democracy. And so the Antitrust Subcommittee hearing that I participated in was kind of like a reboot; they released their report at the end of last year and now we have new members of the Antitrust Subcommittee. And the purpose was to let folks know about a lot of the findings of the report, but in particular, and where my testimony focused, was the need for structurally separating these companies, addressing their business models that allow them to accumulate and maintain this gatekeeping power over any rivals. And so that's really what we're trying to get at.
This idea of structurally separating or breaking up the companies can be described as radical, or outlandish…but we actually have a really long history in our country of doing this.
And the other key point that I made in my testimony is, you know, sometimes this idea of structurally separating or breaking up the companies can be described as radical, or outlandish, whatever, but we actually have a really long history in our country of doing this when we have large corporations that have accumulated a lot of power and have control over critical infrastructure. Think railroads, telephone lines…And similarly, now, the companies that were the subject of the subcommittee's report in that hearing have this type of control over 21st century critical infrastructure of communications, you know, with social media, advertising, and then also with commerce — when you’re talking about Amazon and Apple, when you're talking about mobile operating systems. So we don't just use these tools, you know, willy-nilly. We use these tools when we have companies that rise to this level of dominance and it is not in the interest of our country to allow it to continue.
And so, you know, I think that hearing was a good example of just showing one, the range of bipartisan support. There aren't a lot of examples of issues right now in our political environment that actually garner bipartisan support; anti-trust and doing something about big tech is one of them. Even if we maybe have differences of motivations that get us to that conclusion that we need to do something about big tech firms. And we saw that in that subcommittee hearing.
And then also, you know, another key distinction between, I would say, Economic Liberties’ point of view and some of the other, even, you know, groups that would perhaps get labeled as you know, left leaning progressives, whatever, is we really think it's important that we have break ups and structural separation as part of the legislation that moves forward. It's not enough to just do one-off regulations. For instance, interoperability, which is referring to this idea that you're gonna force Facebook Messenger to allow people to message folks on different social media platforms from their Facebook account (that would be an example of interoperability and mandating that the companies do that), while that is a good policy and it's one that we support, doing that alone will not have any significant impact because the companies are already too dominant. So we really have to be thinking about — and this is what I said in my testimony again — we have to be breaking up, addressing the business model, and also pursuing some of these individual regulations that can change their business models.
And in terms of what changed between late February when I testified and in March — so are you referring to the hearing that happened recently about surveillance advertising? Is that what you’re…?
RIFT: Yes.
MH: Yeah. Well, one: it’s a different committee and so, you know, totally different orientation to the issue. I think one of the unique things about the Antitrust Subcommittee was just how deep they went into researching these markets and businesses. And if you look at that report that's almost 500 pages…I'll save you the trouble, like, get to the spoilers or the recommendations, or check out a couple of Economic Liberties’ reports that do a good job of summarizing some key ideas. But, you know, that was historic! It was the first time in like 50 years that Congress had really exercised that level of research, investigative authority into monopoly power issues. And not every committee is there. So, you know, I think it was good that the Energy and Commerce committee was holding that hearing, but they're not necessarily coming at the issue in such an in-depth way. And when we're talking about surveillance advertising, that's one aspect of the business model, and it’s troubling, so that was kind of the good thing. And we were part of a coalition of organizations that were bringing attention to that — this need to ban surveillance advertising, which is like a core part of their business model that's problematic. But there's so many more things that need to be considered when we talk about the big tech companies, and unfortunately sometimes when you just have the CEOs and the committees that may not be as familiar with the business model issues, then their questions aren’t as in-depth, etcetera…And you know, not to like, cast any dispersions on anybody or anything but it's just, it's hard. It's a lot of work. It takes a lot of time and energy to get up to speed on how these companies operate and to really, you know, make those types of hearings as impactful as possible.
RIFT: So, I kinda want to talk about the tech conglomerates that do control large swaths of our communication networks and the ones that are also complicit in the spread of misinformation. I believe AELP reports that, “64 percent of people who joined extremist groups on Facebook did so because the site's algorithm suggested them.” Why and how are these companies engaging in this behavior? Who are probably the worst offenders if there are any?
MH: The “why” is because they’re making a lot of money (laughs). I mean, let's be clear, like, they're making a ton of money off of the spread of misinformation, and the “how” is in because they're controlling, you know, a couple different elements of these platforms. And so they have the advertising business and they're able with just their supreme, you know, market intelligence and data collection that’s happening, not just on their platforms but actually on our activity across the internet, to then tailor these ads to feed into exactly what you might be searching for, even if you don't wanna search for it. Take for example, and this is something that we mentioned in our reports, is, you know, a person who has an addiction, is struggling with an addiction, and you know maybe is really in the throes of trying to deal with that and is getting referred to, you know, rehab or reminders of the addiction rather than actual services that are going to be helpful to them, you know? You understand what I’m saying.
RIFT: Yeah.
MH: So it isn't always operating in the best interest of the user. In fact, the best interest of the user is completely irrelevant. The goal is engagement and increasing engagement and even if that's something that isn't serving society, democracy…January, the riots on the capitol…they will feed that addiction if it is continuing to drive engagement because they're making a lot of money off of selling ads and, you know, keeping eyeballs on their site. So, it's pretty gross actually.
But the good news is that we don't have to stand for this, that we have a government for the reason to address issues like this. And like I referenced before, it is completely aligned with the way that government can work in this country historically, when we face these types of situations of dominant platforms that are essentially bullies, right? We don’t stand for that; we stop it. And that's what we're really calling on policymakers to do now — both the Antitrust Subcommittee which is already, you know, well on its way to doing something to address this, and in other committees that are considering things like banning surveillance advertising. We can do this. We've already done a lot of research into the problem and so now it's just time for policy makers on the hill in the administration to act.
RIFT: Right. It's funny that you bring up the Capitol Hill insurrection. To me it's funny that they can hammer home all this conspiracy theory and misinformation stuff and then until it gets like, super serious — I mean, like there have been attacks and there have been incidents but until it got this big, that's when big tech was like, “Well maybe we should do something about it” And their reaction was to completely pull Donald Trump from their platforms altogether. And there was also something that I thought was kind of a subtler, but like, kind of still vulgar display of power. Jeff Bezos flat out refused to appear before Bernie Sanders to testify about the treatment of Amazon employees, then recently, unfortunately, Amazon workers failed to unionize (in Alabama). I believe there was a lot of foul play in that and misinformation too. But that aside, what sort of precedent does this create? Like the ability of big tech to just pull not just Donald Trump, but just anyone from their services, and a big CEO like Jeff Bezos can just tell government, “No, I'm not I'm not going to appear before your meeting. I'm not gonna testify. Sorry.”
MH: Yeah, it's just a sign that they have way too much power. They think they're above the law and to date they have been above the law because we have not been checking their power and regulating them. And we relied on this self-regulation because they make pretty products that don't have, you know, a charge per se, in the dollar amount, but certainly a lot of cost as we dig into it, and as we saw in the culmination of what happened on the hill in the riots. And they are, and they will continue to operate in this way, in ways that are unpredictable in terms of who is benefitting.
And I think that's another important point, because like you reference when in response to the capital riots that got Donald Trump banned from some of the platforms, a lot of people were celebrating that. And I think we all can agree that in that moment he was presenting a clear threat to elected officials, and law enforcement on the hill, and general public who might be there and other places across the country where these types of threats are happening and needed to be stopped. But we also need to think about, exactly what you're saying, the precedent in that we have a few guys, you know, and women in some cases on the west coast who are like picking winners and losers and making the calls about our country, not their platform, our country. Who gets to have a 3-billion-person audience, and really the world, if you think about it, right? Because at this point all of these companies are global companies. Who gets to have that kind of audience? Who doesn't? And it's something that I think we all should be very concerned about, because who elected Jeff Bezos? Or Mark Zuckerberg? Or any of these people, right? Nobody! And why are we allowing them to pick the winners and losers over our governing structure? It doesn't make any sense and it truly is, you know, un-American. So, anyways, a lot of people are upset about the decision. A lot of people on the progressive side I think were celebrating the decision to de-platform him.
That's what happens when you have this type of power; sometimes it’s going in the direction you want, sometimes it's going against a whole country that’s trying to regulate it in retaliation.
But then we have another example around the same period where Facebook’s telling Australia, the Australian government, a sovereign state, that's looking to push back on them, “Hey, you push back on us? We're leaving Australia. We're shutting down news in Australia”. And that's kind of out there, you know, but that's what happens when you have this type of power; sometimes it’s going in the direction you want, sometimes it's going against a whole country that’s trying to regulate it in retaliation.
And so, really, no matter what side of the issue you're on we should all be concerned about this much concentrated power and that's why we need the Anti-trust Subcommittee to do something, other parts of Congress and the federal government, and at the state level. We know we have state lawsuits that are also taking on this power and are very effective. There's independent state-level antitrust jurisdiction to also bring these types of enforcement action. So, we need all of it, because the power is out of control. They think they're above the law and there are so many things that we can do to stop it.
RIFT: The passing of Proposition 22 was a small example of the influence that these corporations have over lawmaking and the weakening of labor movements. What hand did the FTC have in weakening labor, if any at all, and is it possible to prevent corporate overreach without a strong labor movement?
MH: I think we need both. And we actually do a Break ‘Em Up series at Economic Liberties that tries to make some of the connections between different policy issues and issues of monopoly power, and our first one, that featured Senator Sanders, was about this — worker power — and how that intersects with monopoly issues. And it comes up in almost every discussion, because it's never going to be possible for labor to truly have a lot of power when you're up against an unaccountable giant. You can get crumbs out of that situation, that can kinda like sustain you, sort of, but it's not gonna be a true fair bargaining process or have truly equitable outcomes. And there are a lot of examples of that, and so we think it is absolutely essential to have an extremely strong labor movement. We need things like the Pro-Act to make it easier to organize, but then we also need our policymakers to address the consolidation, this increase of power that makes it very difficult even when organized. And of course it's already somewhat less likely people will be in an organized union because of how much they've been attacked over this generation, but even when you're in one that you’re actually going to be able to do something about it.
Another example: we recently had an event talking about this. It’s a little bit outside of big tech but, hospital monopolies. We had someone from National Nurses United who is part of that discussion and they’re having to organize in the throes of the pandemic to get better protective equipment. That's a pretty good union, a pretty big union, and it’s strong and organized. But the hospitals kind of get to just do whatever they want and even in a you know, a concentrated region. And that type of power…and really, again, it's just about power that's unchecked.
So I think we really need to have both. And we as an organization have been very supportive of the efforts that were happening in Bessemer. Even if the vote isn't turning out exactly as we wanted, the fact that that level of attention was on working conditions, because of that organizing, I think is really important, the poor working conditions at Amazon — the flip side of that convenience that, you know, some of us enjoyed as consumers of this product. Seeing what is the worker experience there, and are we comfortable with our neighbors being put in those types of positions, and undergoing surveillance at work, and all of that. You're not gonna be able to stop it. I think that the efforts are just going to continue. We're already seeing other parts of the country where Amazon workers are also starting to do more organizing, and we need it in every industry.
And prop 22 is, you’re right, a pretty perfect example of, you know, again, even though Uber isn't technically one of the big tech firms that we're talking about, it’s certainly a firm with a lot of power, a lot of inflated value because of our financialized economy, and all the investment, and they are able to be above the law. And in this case, when a law was passed through the democratic process in California and they didn’t like it, they're going to spend $200 million to write their own law, and by tricking their drivers, and refusing to accept that they are actually employees and critical to their business model.
So, it's very interesting times. And, like I said, it’s a political window that we want to take advantage of, because not only are the stakes very high, but we do think the awareness is high. And so we need to get organized — labor, communities, every level — as quickly as possible to take advantage of it, and start to unwind some of the power that so many of these large corporations have.
RIFT: Right. So you are a former congressional candidate and a Justice Democrat. You understand what it takes to run a leftist grassroots campaign in a media landscape dominated by corporations. So what are the consequences of this power imbalance on the success of those campaigns and like the independent publishers that those campaigns rely on to reach voters? Especially when you mention…when you discuss things like algorithms that control what information gets digested and what gets spread to who. You know, it's kind of like going up against the… it's like untying the Gordian knot, kind of, being a progressive candidate. So could you speak a little bit about that?
MH: Yeah. Well, there’s a lot of challenges in being a grassroots candidate but a lot of benefits, too; most important of which is that you can actually stand up for what you believe in. So, I encourage anybody to run and pursue that if you're interested.
RIFT: See not enough people talk about the upsides about grassroots campaigns. I'm really glad you said that.
MH: Yeah! There’s a lot of upsides! You know it's funny, actually, the next thing I have after this is like talking about setbacks or fail…or, I don't know, like what's been the hardest thing you’ve done. And I would say, or I bet people would expect me to say, like, a great recent failure or something would be not winning our campaign. But actually, I just don't see it like that at all. You know, not to sound pollyannish or anything, but it was an incredible experience. And if you’re a movement person, you know it's about building and preparing the infrastructure and engaging people, and you don't know what engaged people will do after that light goes off for them. I mean I want to win whenever I’m running for anything, of course. But it's so much more than that. And I do hope people, you know, believe that.
When you are a grassroots candidate, you are with the people. There's nothing stronger than that.
And then when you are a grassroots candidate, you are with the people. There's nothing stronger than that. And allowing you to speak for a community, to engage different community members to find their voice to speak out; that is what I believe politics should be about. And yeah, I just hope that folks know what the difference is, because you can get a lot more done and inspire a lot more people if you're accountable to them and working on a grassroots way of building in an organic way. Anyway, but now I forget your original question. What was the question?
RIFT: (Laughs) Well basically just how difficult is it to kind of combat the media landscape?
MH: Oh, the media, yes yes yes. Well you know this is interesting because actually in my campaign, or our campaign I should say, we were convinced, you know, there was this like, conspiracy (laughs), because we didn't really get a lot of local media coverage, as much as we felt was due given, you know, just how much support we were getting on the ground, and how much excitement there was. And I remember when I got the Justice Democrats endorsement, the local paper featured a story about it that was right next to the obituaries, at the back of the paper, and I was like, “Oh, wow…”
RIFT: What?! (Laughs)
MH: Yeah! I was like, “is this a sign?” But, you know what? As I've gone on and now, a year out from the end of the campaign, and have had a chance to build a lot more relationships with local media, I think there's a little bit of that, a little bit of fear of a retaliation from the establishment who has more long-standing relationships with the editors of some of these papers and political teams, especially, but more of it, to me, is that they don’t have any time. And this does get back to the big tech thing, right? Big tech and the ad business is killing local journalism. And, you know, Gannett is the owner of our local paper now, and folks don't have as much control over the editorial decisions. They don't have as much bandwidth to walk into different stories. The local TV is hard pressed to be able to like, get the resources and report. They just had another round of layoffs at the local station here, so they’re being really pushed to the limit. And so I have a lot of empathy for folks who are in local journalism, too.
But you do see a real difference, I would say, in the quality of reporting that comes from more independent sources. You know, we have our local NPR affiliate that's just awesome here, and able to cover some of the grassroots community work that we're doing. We can sometimes get coverage from them.
So I think it is difficult, but it's not insurmountable. And the main lesson and take away for me, and I would say to anyone who is running for office is, just be super aggressive — super aggressive about sending press releases, super aggressive about building relationships with media. And then from a policy perspective, everyone should be super aggressive about breaking up big tech so that we can actually get local journalism to be profitable and support the work that is more focused on community and holding local elected officials accountable. Because that breeds into the culture that creates a more electable environment for grassroots candidates. It’s very complementary the work of true local independent journalism and the work of the progressive movement.
RIFT: I really appreciate the optimism. Honestly, it's rare that you hear such a like…it's kind of refreshing honestly. So with that said though, would you be considering another run for office?
MH: Not sure. I mean, I would definitely run for something again. And, like I said, it was just an incredible experience and the work isn't done, so nothing's off the table. But not, you know, totally decided on specific next steps.
RIFT: Awesome. Well, I hope to see you run for anything. You got my vote. I mean, I'm not in Ohio but like it would be cool.
MH: Thank you! You gotta move to Ohio!
RIFT: I mean, I've never been actually but you know what’s funny? One little fun tidbit that I found while looking up just some general research is that one of the first antitrust laws actually came from Ohio. I think it was 1894 if I’m not mistaken.
MH: Did you get that out of “Goliath”? Matt Stoller, my colleague’s book?
RIFT: (Laughs) No I haven't read that actually.
MH: You gotta read that.
RIFT: Honestly it was from Wikipedia, but I should read that book. I do like Matt Stoller, so I should read that.
MH: Oh. So that's interesting too because, and this is where, you know, for a lot of progressive thinking about antitrust like, “Oh antitrust, that’s esoteric, and not really one of our core issues,” I think, especially in places like Ohio, this actually is a long tradition. And these are the issues around, like, power and people feeling like they can tell us what to do, and you know trying to, like, flex their power at the expense of the working guy, gal whatever. You know, that’s like, deep in our culture here and so I do think that we're going to see more candidates, I hope, who are running on this type of messaging, because I know for my campaign it was one of the most compelling things that I could say; that I'm not a politician and I'm not taking any money from corporations because I wanna be free to fight for you. And people who clearly were ready to slam the door in my face would open it back up and keep listening after hearing that, so, yeah, this is what we're about. We're about freedom, right? That’s the idea, America? (Laughs)
RIFT: (Laughs) I think so. I've heard that once.
MH: Yeah we’ve heard that, right? And true freedom comes from having control of our economic life, having control over our democracy and our voices to engage in the civic process, and it cannot exist, coexist, with extreme consolidated power among a few large corporations.
RIFT: That leads into my next question. Can you talk more about your work with the American Economic Liberties Project in terms of advocating for equal opportunity rather than just equal accessibility? Or, is it about creating not just opportunity for people to pursue, I don't know, high salary jobs, but more so about giving people equal footing so that they can do whatever they want?
MH: Well, I definitely think one of my core political values, this is maybe like a bit outside of the scope of my Economic Liberties related values, but, you know, what are we after? I'm after this idea of equality — equality being you have a chance to live out your potential. And it's your decision whether you want to live that out, right? Nobody can force you. It's not going to be a given that it happens. But that you aren’t denied that chance just because of the circumstances of your birth, what neighborhood you're born into, your school, whatever, right?
And I do think at Economic Liberties our vision of like, “Okay, well what is our vision of a more equitable economy?” It's that you have some ability to own that experience, to run your life. And that could look like potentially running a small business that has a chance to actually earn enough money for you as an individual or family to be okay. It could look like working as part of a medium-sized business that also, maybe gives you equity to also be part of running that business. And for some people it will look like working as an employee over an extended period of time for a large corporation perhaps, where you are unionized and you have some ability to advocate for yourself and protect yourself and not just be at the whim of your manager or boss or whatever. So I think there are a lot of options still in our vision of what a more functioning, equitable economy will look like, but at the core of it is having more possibilities for people to have more ownership over their experiences and also a slice of the economy, should they choose to do so.
When we start to make these connections, that we are all vulnerable, that we all though also have the power to do something about it, we can win. So, let's go.
And right now, what we have is even if you're a small business, if you're a medium-sized business, take the hearing that I was in, you know, the CEO that was testifying on that hearing wasn't some like, you know, convenience store owner, mom and pop shop. This is the CEO of Mapbox that is like, “I can't compete because of Google. Google is a threat every single day to my company.” Right? So like, medium-sized business, pretty sophisticated player. Even if you're, you know, working as an employee for a large corporation and you're pretty senior, you could be let go, have a non-compete imposed on you at a whim. Like, this isn't freedom. This isn’t actual ownership. This isn't any sort of like, security; we are all vulnerable. And when we come together to demand a different economic circumstance, we can get there. And that's what is this moment. That's what this moment is about. It’s like, when we start to make these connections that we are all vulnerable, that we all though also have the power to do something about it, we can win. So, let's go.
RIFT: I really appreciate that answer. So yeah, that pretty much wraps up the interview. Did you want to add anything else before we close?
MH: No I think we're good.
RIFT: Alright, awesome. Morgan I want to thank you so much for joining us today and yeah, thank you for all the work that you do!
MH: Yes, thanks for reaching out and patience with the scheduling. It was good to connect!
