Future Hindsight Free Market Capitalism Erodes Democracy: Mordecai Kurz
Oct 1, 2026
Mordecai Kurz, Stanford economics professor emeritus and author of Private Power and Democracy’s Decline, explores how Reaganomics, technology, and corporate consolidation transformed free markets into a winner-take-all system. They discuss monopoly power, unions, antitrust, worker displacement, public investment, and the dangerous conversion of economic inequality into political influence.
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Antitrust Must Target Hidden Monopoly Power
- Antitrust should target durable market power, not merely whether competitors can legally enter.
- Apple illustrates the problem: roughly 15% of smartphone units but about 45% of revenue through proprietary technology.
Adam Smith Assumed Nobody Had Market Power
- Adam Smith’s competitive model assumed small participants, equal information, and no individual power over prices.
- Under those conditions, self-interest could produce socially beneficial outcomes and align economic with political freedom.
Reaganomics Made Technological Monopolies Permanent
- Deregulation and tax cuts allowed technology owners to acquire competitors and consolidate information, patents, and capital.
- Kurz argues that Reagan-era policy turned temporary technological advantages into permanent economic power.
