About Us

Over the last two decades, Americans have witnessed the most extreme consolidation of economic power in our country in more than a century. Today’s giants pose many of the same problems as their Plutocratic Era predecessors. They destroy jobs, slow innovation, degrade safety, harm our environment, endanger our national security, force us to pay more for less, and threaten the liberties and properties of the entrepreneurs and workers who form the core of America’s middle class.

But today’s goliaths also pose new dangers. The wholesale consolidation of recent years, by rendering many corporations “Too Big to Fail,” has greatly increased the likelihood of highly destructive industrial and financial crashes. And, the rise of new online platforms has greatly accelerated the concentration of power over entire realms of human economic activity.

The Open Markets program at New America uses journalism to promote greater awareness of the political and economic dangers of monopolization, identifies the changes in policy and law that cleared the way for such consolidation, and fosters discussions with policymakers and citizens as to how to update America’s traditional political economic principles for our 21st century digital society.