By Michelle Meagher
Pages: 256
We live in the age of big companies where rising levels of power are concentrated in the hands of a few. Yet no government or organisation has the power to regulate these titans and hold them to account. We need big companies to share their power and we, the people of the world, need to reclaim it.
In Competition is Killing Us, top business and competition lawyer Michelle Meagher establishes a new framework to control capitalism from the inside in order to make it work for the many and not just the few.
Meagher has spent years campaigning against these multi-billion and trillion dollar mammoths that dominate the market and prioritise shareholder profits over all else; leading to extreme wealth inequality, inhumane conditions for workers and relentless pressure on the environment.
In this revolutionary book, she introduces her wholly-achievable alternative; a fair and comprehensive competition law that limits unfair mergers, enforces accountability and redistributes power through stakeholder governance.
"Following a succinct but interesting description of her own career path and what events ultimately led her to write Competition is Killing Us, Meagher outlined what she calls the six main myths of competition - internalised misconceptions of what competition and free markets declare themselves to be. [...] Meagher concludes her book by proposing a new form of competition law, one that would be able to hold companies accountable for their indiscretions by limiting hegemonistic mergers, punishing rule-breaking and redistributing power through stakeholder governance. Her proposal is rational and straightforward, to the point that reading only the last section of the book would make the audience question why nothing of the sort has never been passed into official law."
Articles by Meagher
- Monopoly power is running wild. We need tough competition laws to rein it in, op-ed in The Guardian (September 2020)
- Fifty years of shareholder value have swollen monopoly power, op-ed in the Financial Times (September 2020)
- They ride for you for Vittles (April 2020)
- Shareholders won’t be the ones that save us, a letter in the Financial Times (October 2019)
- We can't rely on corporations to reform themselves – we must challenge their power for OpenDemocracy (September 2019)
Podcasts with Meagher about the Book
- Pitchfork Economics, 8 December 2020
- New Economics Foundation, 6 October 2020
- Tax Justice Network, 24 September 2020
Table of Contents of Competition Is Killing Us
- Preface: Changing my mind about the free market
- Introduction: Debunking the myths of competition
Part One: Unwinding the Twisted Logic of Competition
- Competition by another name
- This is your brain on shareholder value
- In big we trust
- Anti-what now?
- Shareholders above the law
- A nation of shareholders
Part Two: How to Make Corporate Capitalism Work for People and Planet
- Stakeholder antitrust
- Speaking truth to market power
- Power to the people
- Conclusion
About Michelle Meagher
Michelle Meagher is a Senior Policy Fellow at the University College London Centre for Law, Economics and Society and co-founder of the Inclusive Competition Forum, a think tank focused on democratising corporate power and the enforcement of competition law. Michelle is a UK and US-qualified lawyer, specialising in competition law and corporate governance. Michelle sits on the corporate governance committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
