Jan 18 - Enshittification: The Rise and Fall of Big Tech — with Cory Doctorow: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_YsKONp5zRgeF6SVuIOb6hQ#/registration

Feb 01 - Asset Managers and the Rise of Rentier Capitalism — with Brett Christophers: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ITu3rw2HRYO10l8NMKlqJA#/registration

Feb 15 - Rentierism and Big Pharma — with Nick Dearden: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_BtJDvnQlS-Omb7noyV7k4A#/registration

Feb 29 - Monopoly Power and EU Competition Policy — with Angela Wigger: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Az1ZzDkgTzip-3nfJM42jg#/registration

Mar 14 2024 - to be announced

For every product you buy on Amazon, 40% of the price goes directly to Amazon. At the same time, just three private equity firms own 90% of the companies on the New York Stock Exchange. Why compete, when you can own the market? Why produce when you can lay back and collect monopoly rents?

We delve into the rise of so-called Rentier Capitalism and the dynamics of monopoly power fueling it. We take a step back and see how we got here; what we can learn from the rise and fall of an earlier era of monopoly capitalism. We will uncover the current key institutional frameworks and actors. We investigate prominent investment funds as well as Big Tech and Big Pharma.

We all know how that game of monopoly ends: winner takes all. But in the real world, there is hope: the hegemony of this system is being challenged. New battle lines are being drawn as the interests of different sectors of capital diverge. Consumers and workers are fighting back.

We face multiple existential crises and need to re-evaluate our existing economic systems. If these corporate behemoths continue to hold sway, they are potentially jeopardising the future of our planet. So, we will ask: how to bring them down? How to break them up?

Speakers in this course:
Cory Doctorow (Author, activist and journalist), Brett Christophers (Uppsala University), Nick Dearden (Global Justice Now), Angela Wigger (Radboud University), and a mystery guest for final session

More on the whole series here: https://crashcourseeconomics.org/series/rentier-and-monopoly-capitalism