Below is an excerpt from Franklin Roosevelt's message to Congress about curbing monopolies.
"April 29, 1938
To the Congress:
Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people.
The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.
The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living.
Both lessons hit home.
Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing."
This concentration is seriously impairing the economic effectiveness of private enterprise as a way of providing employment for labor and capital and as a way of assuring a more equitable distribution of income and earnings among the people of the nation as a whole."
I am not going to say that history repeats itself, but FDR's message to congress is as relevant today as it was back in 1938. Today we have a major nuclear power, Russia, being ruled by a kleptocrat, Putin, who is invading a neighboring country in an effort to live out his fantasy about being Czar Peter the Great. Furthermore, the wealth, resources, industry, and political power in our own country are being concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. As the real income of the middle class declines, and the wealth of the few increases to unprecedented heights the anger of a restive citizenry continues to grow. This decline in real wages combined with the rise of minority ethic and racial groups make white men without college educations particularly susceptible to the fear and loathing demagoguery of the extreme right, including the fascists. The danger posed by that susceptibility and discontent can be seen in the election of America's kleptocrat and would be autocrat, Donald Trump, who went so far as to attempt a coup d'etat in an effort to avoid having to turn over the office of President of the United States to Joe Biden, who won the election to that office.
Many will say that America dodged a bullet by electing Joe Biden rather than Donald Trump in 2020, but the danger to our freedom is far from over. A very large percentage of our citizens do not understand what a president can or cannot do to improve the economy, nor do they understand that democracy and prosperity are so intertwined. If those ignorant and fearful people are presented with the false choice between democracy and prosperity they will choose prosperity, thereby losing both their freedom and prosperity! Unfortunately, soaring inflation caused by the rapid recovery of jobs lost during the pandemic and by a disruption in the supply of oil due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine are now fanning the flames of anger and discontent by lowering real wages at a time when increased employment opportunities seemed to indicate so many good things to come. Furthermore, there is strong evidence that the major oil companies are taking advantage of the disruption in supply by gouging the consumer. Since gouging the consumer has become much easier for the oil companies because of all the mergers that have taken place over the last forty years, I think we need more competition in the market place. J.P. Morgan damned all Roosevelts; I bless them. At the very least, I think we should seriously threaten some anti-trust action against those price gouging multi-national corporations! Doing so is a sound economic act, and a political act aimed at the undemocratic Republicans who place a higher value on increasing their power than they place on preserving our democracy and advancing the interests of our people!
