WHEN THE MARKET HAS ONE OWNER, FREEDOM GETS A RENT BILL.

VAULT · 03 · DEFEATING THE EPSTEIN CLASS

Published by Langhorne P. Breedlove

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2026 · 1:56 AM ET

Tags: Monopolies · Oligarchy · Kleptocracy · Antitrust · Corporate Power

Dear fellow American proletariat: A person opens a business and learns that the marketplace is owned by a competitor, the supplier has an exclusive agreement with that competitor, the delivery service charges a fee to reach its customers, and the firm's lobbyist is explaining to Congress why none of this should concern anybody. What a marvelous free market. Freedom, apparently, now comes with a monthly platform subscription.

This essay asks how market power can become political power, and when either crosses into unlawful conduct or corruption. Monopoly, oligarchy, and kleptocracy describe different conditions. Using the words interchangeably produces splendid outrage and terrible analysis. The American Proletariat's 'Epstein Class' is a political description of concentrated, unaccountable influence, not a criminal accusation against every rich or well-connected person.

ROOTS · THE TRUSTS DID NOT INVENT THEMSELVES

On July 2, 1890, President Benjamin Harrison signed the Sherman Antitrust Act, the first federal statute directed against monopolistic business practices. The National Archives identifies the Standard Oil Trust, formed in 1882, as an example of multiple corporate properties controlled through a common group of trustees. The question of whether private power could restrict competition had become a national constitutional and political argument. (Source 01)

In 1911, the Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of Standard Oil under antitrust law. Investigative reporting by Ida M. Tarbell had documented practices associated with the company's rise, but the judicial remedy rested on legal proceedings rather than the writer's reputation. Congress later passed the Clayton Act and Federal Trade Commission Act in 1914, adding institutions and tools for competition enforcement. (Sources 01, 02)

The historical lesson is neither that every enormous firm must be broken apart nor that growth excuses exclusion. The law developed to distinguish competing successfully from suppressing competition unlawfully. A company can become large by producing something people genuinely want; the question changes when it blocks rivals by unlawful means.

THREE WORDS · THREE DIFFERENT PROBLEMS

MONOPOLY · POWER OVER A MARKET

The Federal Trade Commission explains that courts assessing monopolization ask whether a firm has durable monopoly power in a relevant market and whether it gained or maintained that position through improper exclusionary conduct. A superior product, business skill, or historical accident does not by itself violate Section 2 of the Sherman Act. Antitrust cases require market definition, evidence of conduct, and consideration of legitimate business justifications. (Source 03)

A firm can have power over customers, employees, or suppliers, depending on market conditions. Consumers may face fewer alternatives; workers may face fewer employers; independent sellers may be dependent on a dominant platform. Those are hypotheses to investigate in specific markets, not conclusions established by the existence of a familiar corporate logo.

OLIGARCHY · CONCENTRATED POLITICAL INFLUENCE

Oligarchy concerns rule or decisive political influence concentrated among a small group. It is not a technical violation automatically defined by the Sherman Act. Evidence might include control over appointments, political financing, access to decision-makers, state contracting, media ownership, or the ability to write rules that competitors must obey. Yet wealth, political participation, and lobbying remain distinct from bribery: lawful advocacy may be influential without proving an unlawful exchange.

OpenSecrets reported about $4.4 billion in federal lobbying spending in 2024, a record according to its analysis at the time. This reflects reported spending across businesses, trade associations, unions, nonprofits, and other organizations. It is not a measurement of bribes or a finding that every lobbying contact changed a vote. Disclosure allows the public to ask who sought influence, on which issues, and with what result. (Source 04)

KLEPTOCRACY · THEFT THROUGH PUBLIC POWER

The U.S. Justice Department describes kleptocracy as high-level, large-scale corruption, extortion, or theft of public money by or for public officials. Its asset-recovery framework concerns tracing and forfeiting property associated with specified wrongdoing, subject to legal procedures. Kleptocracy is not merely 'a billionaire I dislike,' 'an expensive government program,' or 'an unusually profitable corporation.' It requires facts concerning abuse of public office and the diversion of public resources. (Source 05)

That distinction protects both the public and the credibility of investigators. A lobbying disclosure, a merger filing, an improper payment, and a criminal indictment are different types of record. The last is itself an allegation until adjudicated. We can be fierce about scrutiny without asking the reader to mistake a suspicion for a conviction.

HOW THE THREE CAN REINFORCE ONE ANOTHER

Economic concentration can make political access cheaper for a large company relative to a smaller rival. Political influence can, in turn, affect licensing, procurement, market-entry rules, and enforcement budgets. Where officials solicit or receive unlawful private benefits in exchange for public action, the issue may cross into corruption. But none of these links can be presumed from size alone; proving a mechanism requires documents, identifiable decisions, and a legally relevant pattern.

The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission's 2023 Merger Guidelines examine, among other factors, the elimination of potential entrants, control of inputs that rivals need, entrenchment of dominant positions, and patterns of multiple acquisitions. The guidelines describe agency enforcement analysis; they are not themselves binding law, and the facts of a particular merger still matter. (Source 06)

What about an empire spanning healthcare, property, advertising, finance, retail, entertainment, and government contracts? It might contain several legally distinct markets. A historian should investigate the chain of influence and the public rules governing each piece rather than declare a single giant monopoly encompassing everything from breakfast cereal to satellite launches.

TODAY · WHAT THE EVIDENCE DOES & DOES NOT SHOW

The Government Accountability Office's February 2025 High-Risk List identified thirty-eight federal areas vulnerable to waste, fraud, abuse, mismanagement, or in need of transformation. GAO reported approximately $759 billion in financial benefits from addressing high-risk issues over time. Neither the thirty-eight categories nor the reported savings establish that those agencies are kleptocracies. Administrative failure, weak controls, and criminal theft are distinct claims. (Source 07)

Similarly, merger activity is not proof of illegality, and market share is not proof of exclusionary conduct. Strong evidence requires a defined market, baseline competition, credible measurement, the conduct at issue, and an assessment of consumer, worker, or supplier outcomes. A headline announcing that three companies dominate a sector can be a beginning of an investigation—not the completed investigation.

WHO DECIDED · INSTITUTIONS & RESPONSIBILITY

Congress created the governing antitrust statutes and can revise them. The Justice Department's Antitrust Division and the FTC enforce federal competition law within their assigned authority; courts adjudicate claims and remedies. Congress and executive agencies administer campaign-finance, lobbying, procurement, ethics, and anti-corruption regimes through separate statutes. State attorneys general and state competition laws also matter. There is no single legal lever labeled END OLIGARCHY that a president may pull on inauguration day. (Sources 02, 03)

Structural divestitures can be available for proved antitrust violations, but have to follow lawful proceedings. Corruption investigations need standards for evidence, searches, charges, hearings, and appeal. Political transparency must respect protected expression and association. A program that disregards due process while claiming to dismantle arbitrary power has rather dramatically misunderstood the assignment.

WHAT WOULD CHANGE THE RULES?

FOLLOW THE MARKET POWER

Define specific product, geographic, labor, and supplier markets; measure entry barriers and control over distribution or infrastructure; and examine whether exclusionary practices have reduced competition. Compare structural separation, conduct remedies, and merger prevention on their likely effectiveness and disruption. The separate Justice policy 'Break Up Concentrated Corporate Power' is where AP's proposed legislative and enforcement choices belong.

FOLLOW THE POLITICAL ACCESS

Connect legally public lobbying reports, campaign-finance data, official financial disclosures, contract awards, regulatory decisions, and meeting records using transparent identifiers and appropriate privacy protections. Look for evidence of preferential decisions, conflicts, or noncompliance; publish the source and the limits of each finding. A graph of acquaintances is not a trial transcript.

FOLLOW THE PUBLIC MONEY

Audit contracts, grants, procurement exceptions, ownership arrangements, and payment records. Distinguish fraud from error, waste from unlawful enrichment, and an assessed penalty from recovered money. Where evidence suggests crime, use independent authorities and courts. Where it suggests flawed administration, repair the procedure rather than announcing a national conspiracy without proof.

THE MONEY · THE ONE-YEAR & TEN-YEAR TEST

A program of stronger competition and anti-corruption enforcement has real costs: economists, investigators, forensic accountants, litigators, auditors, information systems, privacy safeguards, and court-supervised remedies. There may be substantial public benefits from better procurement and competitive markets, but those benefits do not all arrive as cash in the Treasury and cannot be counted twice.

YEAR ONE · ESTIMATE PENDING. Set an enacted-law baseline for FTC and DOJ enforcement, inspectors general, government contracting controls, and public-disclosure systems. Identify new staff, technology, investigations, legal proceedings, and transition resources. For scale only, five hundred additional positions at an illustrative fully loaded $180,000 each would equal $90 million annually before equipment, courts, and program administration. That arithmetic is not an appropriations proposal.

YEARS TWO THROUGH TEN · ESTIMATE PENDING. Forecast each year's administrative costs, investigations, case durations, court orders, monitoring, fines legally collectable, and verified savings in procurement. Model alternative outcomes for market entry, prices, labor earnings, innovation, and business disruption separately. Publish nominal and inflation-adjusted costs, low/central/high scenarios, and net fiscal effects against the enacted baseline. Do not treat the hypothetical breakup value of a firm as federal revenue.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Concentrated production can sometimes deliver genuine economies of scale, innovation, reliability, and lower costs. Disrupting an integrated business without a credible transition plan may hurt its workers or customers. Aggressive antitrust enforcement can deter lawful investment if standards are unpredictable; lax enforcement can allow exclusionary practices to become entrenched. Courts and economic evidence should test each case.

Anti-corruption systems can also be abused. Politicians might weaponize disclosure against opponents, target lawful association, or accuse people of crimes because of wealth, party affiliation, or proximity to a scandal. Public records need correction procedures, confidential safeguards, and independent investigations. A movement describing itself as an opponent of hidden power should not build its own unreviewable machinery.

WHY IT MATTERS

Competition affects what people can buy, where they can work, and whether they can start something of their own. Accountable government affects whether laws apply consistently and whether public funds serve the people who provided them. The point is not to abolish success; it is to understand the conditions under which private advantage becomes unaccountable power, and public office becomes an instrument of private extraction.

If an American has to ask one conglomerate for a job, another division of the same enterprise for a mortgage, and a third for access to customers, there are questions worth asking. If an official directs public resources for unlawful personal benefit, there are laws worth enforcing. The answer begins with evidence, continues through transparent institutions, and ends with consequences proportional to what the record proves—not with a list of villains compiled from somebody's dinner photographs.

E pluribus unum, bitches.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

01 · National Archives — Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890), signed July 2, 1890; Standard Oil history. https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/sherman-anti-trust-act

02 · U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division — The Antitrust Laws: Sherman, Clayton and FTC Act overview. https://www.justice.gov/atr/antitrust-laws-and-you

03 · Federal Trade Commission — Monopolization Defined, market power and exclusionary conduct. https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/monopolization-defined

04 · OpenSecrets — 2024 Annual Report, federal lobbying data and methodology. https://dkftve4js3etk.cloudfront.net/2024-annual-report/OpenSecrets-2024-Annual-Report.pdf

05 · U.S. Department of Justice — Asset Forfeiture Policy Manual, definition of kleptocracy and asset recovery. https://www.justice.gov/jmd/file/821291/download

06 · U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission — 2023 Merger Guidelines, December 2023. https://www.justice.gov/atr/merger-guidelines/overview

07 · U.S. Government Accountability Office — 2025 High-Risk List, February 25, 2025. https://www.gao.gov/high-risk-list

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WE ARE ONE.  ·  E PLURIBUS UNUM.