The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age

by Tim Wu

In a representative democracy, lawmaking is supposed to roughly match what the majority wants. If that is unclear or disputed, then we might expect or hope they’d reflect the interests of the “swing” voter—that is, the middle-of-the-road man or woman. But research shows that, for the vast majority of policy matters, that isn’t how things work at all. It was a scholar named Mancur Olson at Harvard who, in the 1960s, upended the understanding of political influence by pointing out that, in fact, large majorities don’t get what they want on many issues. Instead, they consistently lose out to small, closely-knit groups with discrete interests around which they organize—of which the “industry association” is the best example. A group like “the middle class” or “consumers,” while impressive in numbers and even theoretical economic power, faces major disadvantages in the actual political process. That follows because political influence—lobbying—requires organization, financial resources, time, and yields rewards that are not limited to those who put in the effort. Olson’s memorable conclusion is that the small and organized will dominate the large and disorganized.