I listened with rapt attention as my daughter described America’s gilded age, a subject her seventh grade class was studying. “The names have changed,” I offered, “but much of what you’re learning is a mirror image of today, our newly gilded age.”
She and I felt equally impressed and intrigued by the vast private fortunes, the widespread poverty and concentrations of wealth, the rags-to-riches stories of John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. “A scrum pile to the top,” I added.
The scrum pile lingers on. Back then the corruption was coarse; now it has a smooth polish to it – with the finest polishing cloth that smug lawyer lobbyists can buy. A monopolistic mosh pit, nonetheless. Back then, the top one percent owned over 50% of the wealth. The picture today expands on that theme: on top of the pile sits 2,640 billionaires who collectively hold twice the wealth of an entire one-third of the earth’s population.
Our age is gilded anew. The wealth gaps in and of themselves do no harm. Regardless of economic systems and ideals at play, inequality has always been with us. The crude question I turn to is: How many torsos are twitching at the bottom? Or what Peter Turchin refers to as “popular immiseration.” He believes we are headed toward collapse. I agree.
The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have been doubling their efforts to stave off collapse by using their legal weight to break up monopolies. These are agencies purpose-built to regulate power grabs, to somehow dilute our newly gilded concentrations of corporate power, to pull back those who have stepped over the line. And what exactly constitutes stepping over the line? Since the 1980s, the courts have turned to Robert Bork’s “consumer welfare” standard when attempting to locate that opaque line in the sand.
There are tempting comparisons to make between the monopolistic behaviors of a Rockefeller and a Bezos, and I’ve written about the FTC case against Amazon. While that may be the main stage, there is a fascinating sideshow now playing: The DOJ has its sights on Live Nation, the dominant player in the concert industry. Live Nation, along with their subsidiary, Ticketmaster, have presumably crossed the line and are engaging in anticompetitive practices.
As with Standard Oil and other industry titans, the DOJ wants to see Live Nation broken up. The timing of Ticketmaster’s “technical glitch” during the initial sales of Taylor Swift concert tickets was no coincidence. (Full disclosure: my daughter is a Swiftie.) The ensuing angst triggered a congressional hearing.
The fine calculus aimed at satisfying concert promoter, artist and music fan is out of balance. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average ticket price for a show this year is $225. At the high end, some tickets for a Bruce Springsteen show sold for $5,000 – drinks with Bruce not included.
Some accuse Live Nation of price gouging – difficult to be certain of that. There are any number of fees to consider: service fees, convenience fees, facility fees and processing fees. Oh yes, and there is an added allowance that goes into the executive’s pocket. Michael Rapino, Live Nation’s CEO, pocketed $139 million in 2022, and for every $600 he filched -- excuse me, earned -- his median-salaried employee took home a handsome one-dollar bill. This is the sordid part where market domination gets weaved into the American dream; where the rewards of walking over that fine line are worth the risks.
“There is a widespread conviction in the minds of the American people,” Teddy Roosevelt had fumed at Rockefeller, “that the great corporations are in certain of their features and tendencies hurtful to the general welfare."
No telling what Teddy would have shouted if he knew the price of a Taylor Swift concert ticket.
After years of globetrotting, Broadman finds himself writing from his perch on the Palouse and loving the view. His policy briefs can be found at US Renew News: usrenewnews.org.
