Capitalism’s race to the bottom There is an interesting story about how the chicken of the 1930s (on the left) became the chicken of the 21st century (on the right). It’s not just a tale about how antibiotics created bigger chickens (presumably even your organic, no-antibiotics, free-rangers are a product of that selective breeding), but about how monopsony makes prices higher by eliminating competition, not among manufacturers but among buyers upstream of consumers (the Tysons and Perdues, and the ADMs and Walmarts, etc.) Bloomberg’s three-part “Beak Capitalism” podcast explains how chicken farmers became Uber-style independent contractors before there was an Uber, and how Big Chicken learned to outsource its risk. Uber was late to that party. Consolidation among chicken processors meant farmers had fewer places to sell their birds (um, the processors’ birds, actually) and had to become all-but employees of Big Chicken. Chicken farmers these days raise the birds as contractors. Once chicken became a staple rather than a luxury (and under cover of the Covid pandemic), Big Chicken found it could raise prices and make more money selling to fewer customers. Without competitors in the market, they could simply set their own prices while blaming inflation, the inflation helped sink Kamala Harris. That economic model is now everywhere. Like chickens, under a Project 2025 administration it’s likely to get even bigger. Beak Capitalism, Part 2: The Chickenization of Everything Beak Capitalism, Part 3: Un-Clucking the System (h/t/ DJ)