Retail – Institute for Local Self-Reliance: Recent Episodes
Retail – Institute for Local Self-Reliance
The Biden administration has taken some bold moves to rein in big tech and to challenge market concentration more broadly. Who is winning this battle and why? What are the possibilities for and constraints on a fundamental shift in market power in America?
In April, Stacy Mitchell joined a panel, hosted by the Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative at UC Berkeley, exploring these questions and more, bringing together scholars who study the history, theory, and practice of antitrust with advocates directly engaged in policy debates today.
The panel also featured Gerald Berk, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Oregon; AnnaLee Saxenian, Professor in the School of Information, UC Berkeley; Matt Stoller, Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project; and Steven Vogel, Professor of Political Science and Political Economy, UC Berkeley. Isabella Mariani, a graduate student in the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program, moderated.
You can watch “Has US Antitrust Reached A Turning Point?” here or below.
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Is 2024 the year of trust-busting? This bipartisan issue of small versus big is a fight taking place on the streets and in the Federal and State courts, from grassroots movements to Congressional hearings. ILSR’s Co-Executive Director Stacy Mitchell and Matt Stoller, Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project, joined the Laura Flanders & Friends show to give context to this pivotal antitrust moment.
Stacy explains, “What we are seeing in this administration is we actually have people in place who are making huge change and are using the tools to the full extent that they have . . . There is a lot of grassroots support for the idea of dealing with corporate power. Everybody is feeling this . . .”
Watch the show below or here.
Towns and cities have broad authority to reject dollar store development if they believe it is not in the best interest of the health, safety, and welfare of residents, according to a court ruling in a little-noticed case last November. This could be welcome news to communities pushing back against the explosive growth of dollar stores.Chains like Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Family Dollar are targeting communities all over the US, expanding at an unprecedented pace. The number of chain dollar stores has soared over the past decade, putting one within a five-minute drive of almost every American.[1] As dollar stores have multiplied, the problems they create have multiplied, also. They attract violent crime.[2] They put their workers and customers at risk of physical injury.[3] They siphon sales away from locally owned businesses – particularly from grocery stores, which are vital community anchors.[4] They overcharge customers through chronic scanning errors.[5] They sell expired food and medications.[6] The list of problems goes on and on.
But communities are beginning to turn them away. Over 120 towns and cities have rejected proposed dollar store developments, and more than 60 have put laws in place that limit their expansion. Most of these battles have focused on whether a dollar store is or isn’t allowed under a community’s zoning code. But a district court’s decision, in Dorsey Development DG LLC versus Tangipahoa Parish Council–President Government and Tangipahoa Parish Planning Commission, takes a broader view of a local government’s authority. The court’s decision recognizes a local government’s responsibility to protect the community’s well-being by, in this instance, refusing to allow development of a business model that exacerbates traffic congestion, attracts crime, endangers workers and customers, and harms local businesses, among other injuries. The court’s ruling could open the floodgates for many more communities to prevent dollar store proliferation.
| To fight dollar store chains in your community, check out our Strategy Guide and 17 Problems: How Chain Dollar Stores Harm Communities, a comprehensive accounting of these stores’ economic and social impact. |
Here’s what happened. In March 2023, Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana’s Planning Commission rejected a development application from Metarie-based Dorsey Development Group to construct a building for Dollar General on an unzoned, unincorporated parcel of land just outside the town of Ponchatoula, citing concerns for the “health and safety” of the Parish’s residents.[7] The Parish already had eight chain dollar stores, and, based on their observations and experiences, Commission members were wary of the traffic problems, stormwater runoff issues, blight, and harm to existing businesses that the proposed dollar store would likely create.[8]
The developer’s representative appealed the Planning Commission’s decision to the Tangipahoa Parish Council, which heard his request at its next meeting. After public comments and discussion, no Council member offered a motion to grant the developer’s appeal and to approve the application, so the Planning Commission’s decision prevailed.[9]
The developer then sued the Parish, arguing that the Planning Commission’s decision to deny his development permit and the Council’s tacit support of the Commission’s decision had been “arbitrary and capricious” and had no rational basis, since the proposed development plan met all the Parish’s technical site requirements. But Louisiana district court judge Brian Abels disagreed, supporting the Planning Commission’s decision.
The Planning Commission’s action was based on a local government’s authority to use its “police power” to protect the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens.[10] The police power (the term comes from “policy”) derives from the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states that, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”[11] The federal government retains some police power for itself, then delegates the remainder to states which, in turn, retain some for themselves and delegate the rest to local governments.
At the local level, police power generally encompasses regulations that promote public health and safety and that discourage unhealthy or disorderly activities. Public health codes, building codes, professional licensing requirements, and other regulations that protect the public good are all examples of local police power. Local governments have used the police power to protect wetlands,[12] regulate automobile towing,[13] prohibit fracking,[14] and ban smoking in public places,[15] among many other things.
Judge Abels’s November 14, 2023 ruling focused on whether Tangipahoa Parish was correct in using its police power to reject Dorsey Development’s application. Abels’s six-page decision explained that Louisiana’s constitution gives localities the authority to regulate land use and that, even though the Parish had chosen not to zone the particular property in question, the Parish could nonetheless regulate land use through ordinances, as long as it does so with consistency and without prejudice.
In his ruling, Abel carefully outlined each step in reaching his conclusion. He began by citing Tangipahoa Parish’s development ordinance, which specifically gives the Parish the authority to “promote the public health, safety and general welfare.” He then explained that, even though a proposed development might conform with applicable ordinances, the Parish can still reject a proposal if it is “rationally related to legitimate governmental interests like public health, safety, and the general welfare.”[16] Finally, he carefully evaluated the credibility of each of the Parish Planning Commission and Council members who testified in the trial, concluding that each of them had legitimate, credible concerns about the negative impacts the proposed store would likely have.
Judge Abels’s decision is significant for the many towns and cities pushing back against the rapid growth of chain dollar stores. Communities may now be on firmer ground in rejecting dollar store development proposals, and courts now have a solid precedent for supporting local government decisions to turn away dollar stores. Tangipahoa Parish could be paving the way for countless other communities to stop dollar store proliferation.
~Notes[1] Leticia Miranda, “Thousands of retail stores are closing – so how is Dollar General opening almost 20 stores a week?,” NBC News, December 5, 2019.
[2] Alex MacGillis, “How Dollar Stores Became Magnets for Crime and Killing,” ProPublica, June 29, 2020.
[3] Aimee Picchi, “As dollar stores spread across the nation, crime and safety concerns follow,” CBS News, September 6, 2023.
[4] El Hadi Caoui, Brett Hollenbeck, and Matthew Osborne, “The Impact of Dollar Store Expansion on Local Market Structure and Food Access,” SSRN, June 22, 2022.
[5] Ramenda Cyrus, “Dollar General Overcharges ‘Hundreds of Thousands’ of Customers, Lawsuit Alleges,” The American Prospect, January 19, 2024.
[6] Jasmine Wu, “Dollar General and Dollar Tree fined $1.2 million for selling expired drugs, NY AG says,” CNBC, August 26, 2019.
[7] Richard Meek, “Judge denies Dollar General suit,” The Daily Star, November 17, 2023.
[8] “Minutes of the Tangipahoa Parish Planning Commission,” Tangipahoa Parish, March 7, 2023.
[9] Richard Meek, “Parish council denies Dollar General application,” The Daily Star, April 1, 2023.
[10] Brian W. Ohm, “Some Modern Day Musings on the Police Power,” The Urban Lawyer, Vol. 47, No. 4 (Fall 2015).
[11] United States Constitution, Amend X.
[12] Rock-Koshkonong Lake District v. DNR, 2013 WI 74.
[13] King v. Town of Chapel Hill, 749 S.E.2d 844.
[14] County of Mendocino, California Municipal Code §8.05.
[15] City of Amarillo, Texas Code of Ordinances §8-5-281 – §8-5-289.
[16] Dorsey Development DG, LLC versus Tangipahoa Parish Council–President Government and Tangipahoa Parish Planning Commission, No. 20230001298, 21st Judicial District Court, Division “D”, November 9, 2023.
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In a new study, the Federal Trade Commission found that big retailers — Walmart, Kroger, Amazon — threatened to punish suppliers unless they got first dibs on food and household goods during the pandemic. Senior Researcher Ron Knox explains it in The American Prospect, and recommends what the agency should do next.
“It’s a big deal when America’s top monopoly cop, the Federal Trade Commission, spends its finite time and resources studying an industry. The agency was created a century ago precisely to figure out which markets were working and which weren’t, but for decades the agency did very little of that kind of inquiry. Under Joe Biden, the FTC’s leadership has rekindled that core function, and last week the agency published the results of its examination of one of the decade’s most vexing problems: the fracturing of the grocery supply chain, and the subsequent and ongoing price hikes seen during and since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The FTC’s supply chain study, two years in the making, was succinct but clear: Documents and data from some of America’s largest grocery retailers, producers, and wholesalers showed that in those first months after the onset of the pandemic, dominant mega-retailers had flexed their muscle as the country’s largest buyers of food, shampoo, toilet paper, and every other consumer good to demand their suppliers fill their shelves first, likely at the expense of smaller stores around the country.”
Read the rest of the article here.
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Dollar General is stealing from its customers. It’s a major scam that’s siphoning hundreds of millions of dollars from the poorest people in America. In a new More Perfect Union video, ILSR Co-Director Stacy Mitchell explains how the chain’s business models rips people off. “I’ve begun to really see Dollar General as a criminal organization,” Stacy warns. Watch the video here or below.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For media inquiries, please contact: Reggie Rucker, ILSR Communications Director
“We hope that this study will be followed in short order by renewed enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Act,” Stacy Mitchell says in response to FTC findings on grocery supply chain disruptions.WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 21, 2024) – Stacy Mitchell, co-executive director at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), made the following statement in response to the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) report on grocery supply chain disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The FTC’s findings provide more evidence of how large retailers exploit their power over suppliers to harm smaller grocers, eliminate competition, and drive up prices. When Walmart can flex its muscle over grocery manufacturers to commandeer scarce supplies and secure unwarranted discounts, communities served by independent grocers are left with empty shelves and higher prices — or worse, no grocery store at all. We hope that this study will be followed in short order by renewed enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Act and other action to level the playing field for small grocers and food companies.”
For more from ILSR on large grocery retailers and market power issues, see:
- Boxed Out: How Big Retailers are Flexing Their Supply Chain Power to Kill Off Small Businesses, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Sept. 2022
- The Real Reason Your Groceries Are Getting So Expensive, New York Times, May 2023.
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Hundreds of independent businesses from across the country tuned into a virtual town hall – Small Businesses vs. Monopoly Power: Our Recent Wins and the Hurdles Ahead – to mark progress and build momentum to rein in monopoly power and level the playing field for small, independent businesses. Featuring Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan, the event provided a deep dive into important antimonopoly actions the agency has taken under Chair Khan’s leaders that directly impact small businesses.
Chair Khan took questions and addressed a range of concerns from independent businesses – from the ways corporate middlemen drive community pharmacists out of the market to the harms that dominant online platforms impose on the small businesses that depend on them and the unfair and illegal pricing practices that harm independent grocers and wholesalers.
The event also showcased small business leaders who are fighting back and seeing results of their advocacy. They underscored the importance of engaging with policymakers and pointed them to ways to get involved.
The recording is available on Twitter/X and YouTube or you can watch below.
TAKE ACTION: Share your story of monopoly power — whether it’s your business or hometown. As you heard from policymakers and advocates at the Town Hall, the real stories of how your business is impacted by monopoly power are essential data for policymakers and regulators to take action.
SHARE YOUR STORYKEYNOTE
Chair Lina Khan
Chair—United States Federal Trade Commission
Washington, D.C.
Bio
In conversation with
Stacy Mitchell
Co-Executive Director—Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Portland, ME
Additional Speakers
Thomas Barr
VP of Business Development—Local First Arizona
Tempe, AZ
Danny Caine
Board of Directors—American Booksellers Association
Co-Owner—The Raven Book Store
Lawrence, KS
Aaron “AJ” Johnson
CEO—Oasis Fresh Markets
Tulsa, OK
Roger Lowe Jr.
Member—National Grocers Association
VP/CEO—Lowe’s Market
Littlefield, TX
Pooja Paode
Co-Chair—Small Business Rising
Assistant Director—Cambridge Local First
Cambridge, MA
Nicholas Parks
President—SnobFoods.com
Birmingham, AL
Reggie Rucker
Communications Director—Institute for Local Self-RelianceWashington, D.C.
Lea Wolsoncroft
President—National Community Pharmacists Association
Independent Pharmacy Owner
Alabama
Hosted by Small Business Rising Coalition Partners:
American Booksellers Association
American Independent Business Alliance
American Specialty Toy Retailing Association
Cambridge Local First
Go Local Asheville
Independent Natural Food Retailers Association
Independent Restaurant Coalition
Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Local First Arizona
Local Return
Louisville Independent Business Alliance
Love Live Local
Lowcountry Local First
Main Street Alliance
National Community Pharmacists Association
National Grocers Association
North American Hardware and Paint Association
Provender Alliance
Southeast Michigan Sustainable Business Forum
Workplace Solutions Association
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Co-Executive Director Stacy Mitchell writes about Amazon’s secret profits. Read the full article in The Atlantic.“If you read the recently unsealed materials from the federal antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, you’ll see why the company wanted to keep them under wraps. According to the unredacted notes from one meeting, Jeff Bezos directed his team to stuff more ads into search results, even if it meant accepting more ads internally categorized as irrelevant to what users were looking for. Other quoted documents reveal the company working to conceal a mysterious price-hiking algorithm, in part because “of increased media focus.” Similarly unflattering nuggets abound.
But here’s something you won’t find in those materials, because it was deemed too sensitive to unredact: precisely how Amazon makes its money. Nearly 30 years after the company was founded, we still don’t really know. Amazon has long cultivated the impression that it operates its shopping platform at razor-thin margins, relying instead on its cloud division, Amazon Web Services (AWS), for much of its profit. And yet the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit contends that Amazon’s e-commerce business is, in fact, “enormously profitable.” The resolution to this dispute is likely to figure heavily in whether the judge finds that Amazon is merely a benevolent retail giant or a destructive monopoly. And regardless of what happens in the Amazon case, the fact that large corporations have been able to keep such basic information private helps explain why policy makers, journalists, and the public were so slow to recognize the growing problem of monopolization in America.
Much has been written about how the economy became dominated by an ever-shrinking number of corporate titans, and about the threats this poses to people, local communities, and democracy itself. The phenomenon is not limited to Big Tech; it’s everywhere you look, including in food, health care, airlines, and live events. The leading cause has been the systematic weakening of antitrust enforcement and the appointment of monopoly-friendly judges to the federal bench since the 1980s. But, as the Amazon case suggests, another important, underappreciated factor has also been at work: a staggering lack of transparency. One reason that today’s juggernauts have managed to get so dominant is that they have been able to conduct much of their business in the shadows.
The blame lies with the agency tasked with bringing corporate America’s finances into the open: the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Under SEC rules, public corporations must file quarterly reports disclosing revenue, expenses, profits, and other metrics. Initially, only company-wide data were required. But in 1966, the Senate antitrust subcommittee held a series of hearings exploring how weak financial-reporting rules threatened competitive markets. A main focus was how conglomerates—companies that combine multiple businesses under one roof—could hide information about their subsidiaries that, if revealed, might be evidence of anticompetitive behavior. Following the hearings, the SEC revised its rules to require corporations to disclose financial data for each of their major divisions, or segments. The aim was to ensure that investors and the public had a clear view of each unit on its own.”
Continue reading this article in The Atlantic.
Image Credit: iStock
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For media inquiries, please contact: Reggie Rucker, ILSR Communications Director
“Blocking this merger is a crucial step in restoring healthy competition to food retailing.” Stacy Mitchell Reacts to the FTC’s legal action against the Kroger-Albertsons merger.WASHINGTON, D.C. (February 26, 2024) – Stacy Mitchell, co-executive director at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), made the following statement in response to the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) decision to take formal legal action to stop Kroger’s acquisition of Albertsons.
“The proposed mega-merger between Kroger and Albertsons would have been a disaster for American communities. We applaud the Federal Trade Commission for blocking it.
“This decision shows the FTC sees what we have long argued –– there was no upside to this merger for anybody other than the top executives at these two companies and their investors. Concentration in grocery retail has already caused food prices to skyrocket. We know from past grocery mergers that this one would have sent prices for consumers even higher. It would have left many communities, especially on the West Coast, with little to no competition or choice about where to shop. And it would have hurt retail workers by giving the combined companies even more leverage to push down wages and dictate terms.
“This decision shows that the FTC understands how the outsized power of big retailers is damaging the entire food system. These two giants already exert their power as dominant buyers of food and goods by bullying suppliers into giving them discounts and benefits they don’t offer to smaller food retailers. A merged Kroger-Albertsons would have been able to put even more pressure on suppliers, putting smaller stores, food producers, and farmers at even more of an unfair disadvantage and threatening their ability to stay in business and serve their communities. This merger would have undoubtedly led to even more consolidation among processors and the closure of independent grocery stores, furthering the proliferation of food deserts in underserved rural and Black and brown communities across the country.
“Blocking this merger is a crucial step in restoring healthy competition to food retailing. We hope to see the FTC follow it by taking action soon to reinvigorate enforcement of the Robinson Patman Act and end the predatory buying tactics of Walmart, Dollar General, and other big chains.
“Today’s decision also shows that the FTC has learned from its past mistakes, rejecting the companies’ offer to sell off stores as a way to supposedly “fix” this blatantly anticompetitive merger. In doing so, the FTC is avoiding the kind of calamity seen in the aftermath of the Safeway-Albertsons merger.
“After 40 years of allowing corporations to accumulate unchecked power to raise prices, rip off workers, and crush small businesses, it is clear that the Commission understands the harms that consolidation inflicts on Americans and is committed to restoring open, competitive markets. Today’s action from the FTC signals a return to the heart of antitrust.”
For more from ILSR on grocery and market power issues, see:
- Stacy MItchell in the New York Times: The Real Reason Your Groceries Are Getting So Expensive
- Boxed Out: How Big Retailers are Flexing Their Supply Chain Power to Kill Off Small Businesses
- Video: Fixing the Food Gap with FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya and a panel of community activists, independent grocers, farmer advocates
- Building Local Power podcast with Ron Knox and Kennedy Smith: Cleanup on Aisle 1990
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On Wednesday, February 21st, the Chicago City Council voted 42-7 to enact an ordinance that will limit development of new chain dollar stores and will make it easier for residents to report dollar store code violations and other problems.
The ordinance, introduced by Alderman Matt O’Shea, will prohibit a new dollar store from being developed within one mile of an existing dollar store owned by the same company. Over 60 other cities and towns have enacted similar ordinances in recent years, but Chicago is the largest city to date to do so.
The ordinance also includes a requirement that each dollar store post its district manager’s contact information in a prominent location in the store so that shoppers can report problems they encounter with the store, such as overflowing trash or crowded aisles.
O’Shea introduced the ordinance after receiving many complaints from constituents about the unsafe conditions and poor appearance of dollar stores in the city. Like several other city council members, O’Shea contacted the dollar store chains to ask them to make improvements, only to be ignored or rebuffed. His draft ordinance initially included a provision that would allow the city to suspend the business license of a dollar store that racks up two or more safety or nuisance violations, but he faced intense pressure from Dollar Tree lobbyists to remove this from the final ordinance.
ILSR Senior Researcher Kennedy Smith testified at a public hearing for the proposed ordinance in January, highlighting the many problems that chain dollar stores have created in other communities, from siphoning off sales from full-service grocery stores to attracting violent crime. Tulsa City Councillor Vanessa Hall-Harper, who championed passage of a similar ordinance in her city in 2018, then led the charge to develop North Tulsa’s first full-service grocery store in more than a decade, also testified, saying that no national grocery chain would locate in her district because it had so many dollar stores.
You can also read Vanessa Hall-Harper and Kennedy Smith’s Chicago Tribune editorial on why stopping the proliferation of dollar chains is crucial to eliminating food deserts.
Photo Credit: Alderman Matt O’Shea’s office
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YOU CAN FIND A RECAP AND VIDEO OF OUR TOWN HALL EVENT HERE.Join independent businesses from across the country for a virtual town hall event to mark our progress and build momentum to rein in monopoly power and level the playing field for small, independent businesses. FTC Chair Lina Khan will join advocates and small businesses to provide a glimpse into today’s most important anti-monopoly actions and hear directly from small business owners.Small businesses are in crisis. Decades of pro-monopoly policies have allowed a few giant corporations to consolidate control of many industries. The results are fewer choices for consumers, inflated prices, supply chain vulnerabilities, and “Anywhere, USA” communities.
But small businesses are fighting back and seeing results. Federal, state, and local policymakers have been taking action to level the playing field. The FTC filed a major antitrust case to break Amazon’s grip on e-commerce. The agency has vowed to dust-off a long-dormant law to rein in the predatory practices of big retail chains. States are considering new antimonopoly laws. And much more.
Register now to join a nationwide conversation about how independent businesses can keep this momentum going!
Monday, March 4, 20241:30 – 2:30 pm ETZoom event — REGISTER HEREAdditional speakers and co-hosts, will be announced as they are confirmed.
Hosted by Small Business Rising Coalition Partners:American Booksellers AssociationAmerican Independent Business AllianceAmerican Specialty Toy Retailing AssociationCambridge Local FirstGo Local AshevilleIndependent Natural Food Retailers AssociationIndependent Restaurant CoalitionInstitute for Local Self-RelianceLocal First ArizonaLocal ReturnLouisville Independent Business AllianceLove Live LocalLowcountry Local FirstMain Street AllianceNational Community Pharmacists AssociationNational Grocers AssociationNorth American Hardware and Paint AssociationProvender AllianceSoutheast Michigan Sustainable Business ForumWorkplace Solutions Association
In Nonprofit Quarterly, ILSR Senior Researcher Kennedy Smith describes the federal Equitable Lending Leaders program and some of its biggest lessons.… Read More
Stacy Mitchell writes in an essay for the Journal of Antitrust Enforcement that it is an extraordinary time in antitrust. Her piece is part of a series on the antitrust revolution in the U.S. that includes FTC Chair Lina Khan and the Department of Justice's Jonathan Kanter. Her piece details the broad changes in American thought and politics that have brought us to this extraordinary moment.… Read More
In a popular New York Times Tik Tok, Stacy Mitchell explained why we need to look past the headlines about inflation to understand why our grocery bills are still rising.… Read More
The Biden Administration’s proposed merger guidelines represent a significant shift in policy from the current guidelines. If implemented, the guidelines would help stop harmful mergers that concentrate power in too few hands. This would protect consumers; create a fairer playing field for small businesses, farmers, and workers; bring new vitality to communities and industries; and protect our democracy from outsized corporate power.… Read More
The Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division are proposing new Merger Guidelines and they want you to share your stories. You are the experts on how monopolies — like Amazon, CVS, Dollar General, Comcast, and beyond — have impacted your communities and these stories are key to ensuring the final guidelines are strong. See the link in this post on how to share your stories!… Read More
Communities are adopting innovative strategies to sustain their grocery stores or create new ones amidst the challenges posed by grocery sector consolidation. Some local governments are even creating a public option by operating grocery stores themselves. Here's how these places are ensuring access to fresh, healthy food. … Read More
The US Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission’s new merger guidelines represent a radical departure from the neoliberal assumptions that have underpinned US antitrust enforcement for the last four decades, Stacy Mitchell and Ron Know write in Project Syndicate.… Read More
"This draft heralds a long overdue end to the dangerous and destructive approach of the last four decades," Stacy Mitchell, ILSR Co-Executive Director, says in the statement.… Read More
Small fishermen in the Pacific Northwest are taking a stand against Pacific Seafood, the dominant West Coast crab processor, alleging that the corporation's immense power is driving down prices and manipulating the industry in its favor.… Read More
As the Federal Trade Commission sets its sights on challenging Amazon's dominance in online retail and cloud computing, the agency must leverage its most potent weapon against anticompetitive behavior: Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act.… Read More
Corporate concentration has primarily led to a significant decline in the number of small businesses and suppressed wages. And moreover, Stacy Mitchell explains at the Maine Center for Economic Policy, it has had a profound impact on the erosion of our democracy.… Read More
In a comment letter to the Federal Trade Commission, ILSR urged the agency to use its enforcement and regulatory powers to address the abusive, anti-competitive conduct of Amazon’s cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services. … Read More
Inflation in the grocery sector is a cover story for monopoly power, Stacy Mitchell explains on the Capitol Forum podcast. The real cost of groceries can be traced back to Walmart's price-gouging tactics and our dormant antitrust laws. … Read More
Mitchell goes on to highlight that last year, Amazon exploited its chokehold of the online retail sector by extracting more than $155 billion in fees from Amazon marketplace sellers, calling it, "an extraordinary measure of its monopoly power.”… Read More
Our new fact sheet explains how credit card monopolies and banks are imposing swipe fees — what is essentially a monopoly tax — to rake in profit at the expense of small business and consumers. Congress must take action. … Read More
Mitchell points to Amazon's ability to bully and exploit other businesses through its integration across business lines as an example of why the bill is such "an important piece of legislation."… Read More
As big retailers exploit their financial control over suppliers, independent grocers face extinction, creating food deserts and driving up prices for everyone. In the New York Times, Stacy Mitchell calls to resurrect the Robinson-Patman Act and restore fair competition in the warped landscape of the American food system.… Read More
Join us on Tuesday, May 23rd at 1:00–2:15 pm ET for a live virtual event—featuring Federal Trade Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya alongside community leaders, independent grocers, and advocates… Read More
Our tax system used to serve as a check on corporate power. Now it fuels market concentration and undermines the ability of small businesses to compete, Susan Holmberg and Niko Lusiani explain in ProMarket. … Read More
Amazon’ strategy for dominance — which includes securing government favors, particularly tax advantages — offers a road map of how to harness the tax system to build a monopoly.… Read More
“It’s time to revisit and reimagine the proactive role tax policy can have in enabling fair competition, tackling concentrated markets and in turn driving productivity and innovation, lowering prices, and fueling more and better jobs,” says Susan Holmberg, a co-author of the report.… Read More
As dollar stores multiply rapidly across the U.S., cities are developing dollar store-specific policies to rein in their growth. Such policies include “dispersal restrictions" that set limits on how close new dollar stores can be to existing ones. These ordinances account for the existing concentration of dollar stores within a neighborhood or city and help ensure that these chains cannot amass at such a density that they impede opportunities for grocery stores and other businesses to take root and grow. Our new map shows dollar store defeats and restrictions across the country. … Read More
Stacy Mitchell joined Ann Fisher on All Sides, an NPR segment that covered the rapid expansion of dollar stores. Stacy explains how dollar stores are using their buyer power to strangle small businesses, gain the advantage, and prey on communities all over the country. … Read More
Ron Knox writes in Competition Policy International that in order to foster a more democratic economy we must strengthen merger guidelines and enforce anti-merger laws, promote anti-merger enforcement in Congress, and educate federal judges about the intent behind anti-merger laws.… Read More
In this report, we spotlight communities rising up against dollar chains and how federal policymakers need to address the ways in which misguided policies are fueling the destructive proliferation of dollar stores. … Read More
Communities are successfully fighting back against dollar store proliferation. Our new strategy guide can help you keep these chains out of your community so that the independent businesses that provide good jobs, customize products and services to meet people’s needs, support community institutions, and help shape the community’s personality can thrive and grow.… Read More
Citizens and civic leaders have very good reasons to be concerned about chain dollar stores and their impacts on their communities. Here are 17 of the most common problems that chain dollar stores create. If your community is threatened by chain dollar store development, be sure your local officials are aware of these impacts.… Read More
For the past year, ILSR and Recast City have collaborated on bringing Equitable Lending Leaders, a program to help small business lending programs reach more underserved entrepreneurs and small business owners, particularly owners of color. Now that more than 120 RLFs have participated in Equitable Lending Leaders, we have identified several best practices.… Read More
Lawmakers in Minnesota will have the opportunity this legislative session to put the state at the forefront of a growing national movement to improve and strengthen laws to constrain monopoly abuses against workers, independent businesses, and communities.… Read More
Mitchell proclaims in the statement, "Google actively extracts resources from communities that need them most and threatens a free, local press that lies at the heart of our democracy.”… Read More
Stacy Mitchell spoke at "Rethinking Globalization, Intermediation, and Efficiency," on exploring new paradigms for a post-neoliberal world. Community, Stacy argued, is the foundational basis for this paradigm shift.… Read More
Stacy Mitchell explains on Pitchfork Economics how for the last forty years, merging companies have convinced regulatory agencies that their merger will be better for customers — most often pledging that it will lower prices. Stacy argues that the company's statement promising to pass savings on to consumers is blatantly false.… Read More
On this episode of Building Local Power, three members of ILSR’s Independent Business team, Lauren Gellatly, Katy Milani, and Kennedy Smith, answer: What challenges are small, independent businesses facing? And what legislative solutions are on the way? … Read More
Ron Knox writes in Slate how the shocking collapse of Taylor Swift's tour ticket presale was an inevitable failure of the monopoly Ticketmaster.… Read More
Mitchell says in the statement, "It also raises serious questions about whether Amazon’s monopoly power over the book industry will be allowed to stand.”… Read More
Ron Knox joined Vox’s Today Explained podcast where he details the danger, harm, and effects of the proposed Kroger-Albertsons merger. … Read More
Amazon’s strategy for dominance offers a road map of how to harness the tax system to build a monopoly. In a special issue of Tax Justice Focus, Stacy Mitchell and Susan Holmberg write that local, state, and federal U.S. policymakers have systematically structured the tax system to fuel corporate power and disadvantage small businesses. … Read More
Mitchell says in the statement, "Kroger and Albertsons would control $1 of every $4 spent on groceries in the US. That’s as big as Walmart, whose power in food has done widespread damage to communities, farmers, food workers, and local grocers.”… Read More
Stacy Mitchell, co-director at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, explains how Amazon is purchasing its way into consumers' homes to gain greater visibility and market dominance.… Read More
Lauren is the Advocacy and Campaigns Manager for ILSR’s Independent Business team where she brings her background in advocacy, economic development, and independent business support. Lauren executes campaign strategies and manages relationships with allied organizations and coalition partners, including a coalition of nearly 30 independent business groups and alliances – Small Business Rising – advocating for antimonopoly reforms. Prior to … Read More
Commissioner Bedoya made a powerful case that the guiding aim of antitrust should be fairness, including fairness for small businesses. This would represent a fundamental shift for the agency, which has long allowed misguided ideas about “efficiency” to trump fairness. … Read More
Powerful retailers are killing off small businesses by dominating supply chains. It’s time to revive the Robinson-Patman Act and restore antitrust enforcement against predatory buying.… Read More
Co-hosted by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and Open Markets Institute, this is the antimonopoly, pro-democracy event you don't want to miss!… Read More
In early August, Amazon announced it would pay $1.7 billion to take over iRobot. In a new essay in The Atlantic, Ron Knox writes that if the deal is allowed to happen, Amazon would buy its way to dominance in yet another industry. … Read More
The Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project (CAMP) aims to reform Canadian competition law. For their launch event, Stacy Mitchell, a leader in the U.S. antimonopoly movement, spoke on the importance of antimonopoly to a fair and free economy and democracy.… Read More
Ron Knox, senior researcher and writer for ILSR’s Independent Business Initiative shares why Amazon's Roomba acquisition may be the most invasive and dangerous in the company's history.… Read More
Stacy Mitchell, co-director at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, rings the alarm bells on the Amazon bid to purchase One Medical.… Read More
Today, Amazon announced that it would buy One Medical, an acquisition would completely transform the healthcare industry giving Amazon easy access to private healthcare data. Stacy Mitchell commented on the announcement. … Read More
A year ago this week President Biden “sharply repudiated 40 years of federal policy that favored bigness and overlooked the harm monopoly power can inflict on working people, small businesses, and communities.”… Read More