Summary: We talk with <a href="https://mattstoller.substack.com/">Matt Stoller</a> about his book <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Goliath/Matt-Stoller/9781501183089">GOLIATH: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy</a>.<br> Then we replay an excerpt from <a href="https://www.writersvoice.net/2019/06/thomas-frank-on-populism-donna-murch-on-mass-incarceration/">our interview last year with Thomas Frank</a> about populism-real and fake. He’s got a new book out about it, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/People-No-Populism-Fight-Democracy/dp/1250220114">The People, No</a>.<br> Writer’s Voice — in depth progressive conversation with writers of all genres. On the air since 2004. Rate us on<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/writers-voice-with-francesca-rheannon/id268934105?mt=2"> iTunes or</a> whatever podcast app you use!<br> Like us on Facebook at Writers Voice with Francesca Rheannon or find us on twitter @WritersVoice.<br> <br> Matt Stoller<br> Americans once had a coherent and clear understanding of political tyranny. A concentration of power, whether in the hands of a military dictator or a JP Morgan, was understood as autocratic and dangerous to individual liberty and democracy.<br> This idea stretched back to the country’s founding. In the 1930s, people observed that the Great Depression was caused by financial concentration in the hands of a few whose misuse of their power induced a financial collapse. They drew on this tradition to craft the New Deal.<br> Matt Stoller’s book Goliath looks at the struggles over monopoly power and democracy. He’s also the author of the blog <a href="https://mattstoller.substack.com/">Big</a>, which examines monopoly in the news, covering topics from big Pharma and Big Tech to sports and podcasting.<br> <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Goliath/Matt-Stoller/9781501183089">Listen to an except from GOLIATH</a><br> Thomas Frank<br> We hear a lot about populism these days, but, as discussed in our first segment, the populism that’s being roundly condemned as the ideology of the rightwing is a far cry from the original sense of the term that we know from American history.<br> How did the name of such an important progressive movement get turned on its head by those who link it to right-wing racism and nationalism?<br> <a href="https://tcfrank.com/">Thomas Frank</a> has been thinking about that for a long time. In 2018, he wrote a piece for the Guardian entitled “Forget Trump – populism is the cure, not the disease“, and has recently come out with a book about the topic, The People, No. (We hope to be talking with him about that book later in the season.)<br> But we actually spoke with Frank more than a year ago about the topic, so, in light of our discussion with Matt Stoller, we decided to re-play part of that conversation with Thomas Frank.<br>
