The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age

by Tim Wu

When running for president in 1912 as the head of his own party, Roosevelt became the advocate of a different approach—one then new to American history, but with a difficult legacy in the twentieth century. Roosevelt campaigned on a platform he called “New Nationalism,” where he promised not to break up, but to nationalize or supervise the remaining trust monopolies. In other words, Roosevelt proposed abandoning the very idea of a competitive or decentralized economy, in favor of one dominated by monopolists who were then, in turn, subject to the direction and regulation of the state—the paradigm of “regulated monopoly.” Roosevelt’s approach, later termed “corporatism” by political scientists, was at some level not really so different from the Crown monopolies loyal to the British King, nor, as we discuss more in a moment, was it that much different than the corporate-state alliances adopted by Japan, Germany, and Italy in the 1930s.