Economic Liberties’ Executive Director Sarah Miller talked with Federal Trade Commissioner Rohit Chopra and Zephyr Teachout about concentrated corporate power, the Coronavirus crisis, and the bold structural reforms needed to build a fairer economy and address the root causes of the humanitarian crisis caused by Coronavirus.

The Coronavirus crisis and the government’s response will drastically change the structure of the American economy. The question is whether corporations and Wall Street will successfully take advantage of the crisis to further rig our economic system, or whether progressives will win bold reforms to address the root causes of the humanitarian crisis caused by Coronavirus.

Currently, the situation is bleak: While progressives are fighting for basic protections for essential workers and families facing unemployment, Wall Street and corporate America are poised to receive an unprecedented bailout. At the end of March, the CARES Act created a $4 trillion bailout fund for large publicly traded companies and financial institutions to be overseen by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve.

To understand and effectively respond to the Coronavirus crisis, we have to understand and confront concentrated corporate power. If we don’t, we’ll emerge from this pandemic in a drastically more unequal economy where big corporations and financiers have even more power.

At the same time, the problem of concentrated corporate power, as well as the policy solutions, are complex. This call will be a primer in what progressives need to know about the role of corporate monopolies in exacerbating the Coronavirus crisis.