Liberty from All Masters, Barry C. Lynn
Liberty from All Masters, Barry C. Lynn
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Liberty from All Masters
The New American Autocracy vs. the Will of the People

Author: Barry C. Lynn

Narrator: Chris Abernathy

Unabridged: 10 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/29/2020


Synopsis

One of America's preeminent thinkers provides the clearest statement yet on the nature and magnitude of the political and economic dangers posed by America's new monopolies.

Americans are obsessed with liberty, mad about liberty. On any day, we can tune into arguments about how much liberty we need to buy a gun or get an abortion, to marry who we want or adopt the gender we feel. We argue endlessly about liberty from regulation and observation by the state, and proudly rebel against the tyranny of course syllabi and Pandora playlists. Redesign the penny today and the motto would read "You ain't the boss of me."

Yet Americans are only now awakening to what is perhaps the gravest domestic threat to our liberties in a century--in the form of an extreme and fast-growing concentration of economic power. Monopolists today control almost every corner of the American economy. The result is not only lower wages and higher prices, hence a concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few. The result is also a stripping away of our liberty to work how and where we want, to launch and grow the businesses we want, to create the communities and families and lives we want.

The rise of online monopolists such as Google and Amazon--designed to gather our most intimate secrets and use them to manipulate our personal and group actions--is making the problem only far worse fast. Not only have these giant corporations captured the ability to manage how we share news and ideas with one another, they increasingly enjoy the power to shape how we move and play and speak and think.

About The Author

BARRY C. LYNN is a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation. He has written for Harper's Magazine, the Financial Times, the Harvard Business Review, and Washington Post, among others. He has appeared on National Public Radio, CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, Fox News, CBS, MSNBC, the BBC, and C-SPAN.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Greg

Mr. Lynn raises the problem of monopoly in America, a persistent problem since the 19th century. The importance of this book is how he links the political consequences of monopoly to what are sometimes the more obvious economic consequences. He comments that while we, as individuals, are wise enough......more

This is one of my top books for the year. It is why I try to avoid rating many things 5 stars - I want books like this to stand out. This book makes you realize how little you actually know of U.S. history and how much has been forgotten because those charged with remembering it were focused on the......more

Goodreads review by Ben

It was okay! I found it a little dry. Mostly (obliviously from the title of the book) it was about the USA - so not extremely pertinent. Still, learned some good lessons from it! 3.0/5......more