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Richard R. John

@rrjohnr.bsky.social

830 followers 84 following 45 posts

I teach history and communications at Columbia University. I am working on American anti-monopoly thought and practice, 1760-present. For more details, click on my website. https://journalism.columbia.edu/faculty/richard-r-john .. more

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Richard Rodda John, Jr. is an American historian who specializes in the history of business, technology, communications, and the state. He is a professor of history and communications at Columbia University. .. more

Political science 29%

Engineering 17%

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Sep 12

Annals of Anti-Monopoly: I will be in DC on 25 September to give a talk at George Mason University. The public is invited. Teaser: why was George Washington furious at the reactionary politics of his fellow Virginian George Mason? Was Washington on to something? Is it time to…cancel George Mason?

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · Oct 11

One of my favorite historians of business and technology, @rrjohnr.bsky.social, is now on here. You should follow him, especially for deep takes on the history of US anti-monopoly thinking. And also Post Office history. So Post Office history.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · Oct 10

Every time I see George Stigler credited with inventing the concept of regulatory capture I want to write a letter to the editor.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · Oct 10

Novak credits Samuel P. Huntington:

www.tobinproject.org

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · Oct 11

Beth, I got @rrjohnr.bsky.social to join just for this conversation! LOL.

Richard is working on a history of American anti-monopoly thinking. I was wondering if he'd bumped into any antecedents for regulatory capture theory.

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Ben Waterhouse @benwaterhouse.bsky.social · Oct 11

Richard-- do you have a sense of the etymology of the actual term 'regulatory capture' (as opposed to the concept, which as you say goes way back)? I always thought Huntington coined it in the Marasmus of the ICC article and Stigler cribbed it. But maybe I misremember.

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Dan Greene @dmgreene.bsky.social · Oct 11

Got any interesting critical engagement (review or not) with Stein's Running Steel/Pivotal Decade duology?

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Ben Waterhouse @benwaterhouse.bsky.social · Oct 11

Whatever you have to say, Richard, you can say in front of the entire class.

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Ben Waterhouse @benwaterhouse.bsky.social · Oct 11

Here's a place to start. I cut the end date off at 1980 because the term goes bonkers after that-- if you set the parameter to 2019, you can't even see the little blips in the 19th c. and early 20th c.

Google N gram of term "regulatory capture" showing slight upticks around 1840, 1900, and 1920, before major takeoff in late 1970s

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · Oct 12

@rrjohnr.bsky.social is claiming the idea goes all the way back to the founding of the nation if not before. But here I think we'd need to be VERY careful thinking about definitions and conceptual analysis.

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · Oct 13

No. That's not what I'm saying. It's no doubt true that many of these ideas go back even earlier than the US Founding, for example. But we also need to attend to what new elements came in later and also how specific contexts shaped things. I'm all for "This is old as hell."

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Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social · Oct 18

Question, esp. for historians who teach at places with PhD programs. Is it ok for prospective grad students to get in touch with professors they're interested in working with? Back in the Coolidge administration when I was applying I did this, but I'm not sure it's still acceptable practice.

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Drew Kadel @drewkadel.bsky.social · Oct 27

I realize that I need to learn more, in depth about J.P. Morgan. Are there any good recent studies of him? Trying to locate his religion in the context of his politics, business & cultural activities-but I'd rather find out more about the last 3. @kevinmkruse.bsky.social @thetattooedprof.bsky.social

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The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · Nov 15

Internet speeds have come a long way since the days of the dial-up modem, but sometimes you can’t beat the millennia-old method of carrier pigeon.

At certain data volumes and distances, the pigeon is a quicker option for large swaths of rural America.

Pigeons are still (sometimes) faster than your internet

Internet speeds have come a long way since the days of the dial-up modem, but sometimes you can’t beat the millennia-old method of carrier pigeon.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Patrick McCray @patrickmccray.bsky.social · Nov 22

There's much to be gained from revisiting the nexus of religion and technology; David Noble surveyed some of the territory but there's much much more.

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Benjamin L. Carp 🎏 @bencarp.bsky.social · Dec 13

People who teach (history or similar) in PhD-granting departments: how many student committees (orals, dissertation proposal, or dissertation) do you typically sit in a year?

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Jan 7

Rachel Sheldon’s fine new coauthored essay in the _JAH_ is helping 19th c. US historians to move beyond the “party period” synthesis (championed among others by my mentor David Donald). Party competition for Donald helped to promote unity (along with faith in the Constitution and popular oratory).

Rachel Shelden @rachelshelden.bsky.social · Jan 6

🗃️ 2) Some of the most exciting work on the 19th c is in the history of statebuilding, incl by @gauthamrao.bsky.social @rrjohnr.bsky.social @arielron.bsky.social, that often fit awkwardly w/ the party system model. A new understanding of 19th c parties opens up ways to rethink that relationship 6/

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Shane Hamilton @shamilto.bsky.social · Dec 19

A little piece with Errol Schweizer (former VP of Whole Foods) on the historical significance of the blocked Kroger-Albertsons merger grocerynerd.substack.com/p/grocery-up...

Grocery Update #39: The High Cost of Cheap Food. And The Historic Halting Of A Grocery Merger.

Also: An Autumn Apple Smackdown. Because We Love Apples.

grocerynerd.substack.com

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Jun 17

Annals of anti-monopoly: This just dropped today. When did Americans start seriously worrying about media concentration? Hint: in the 1930s. How did this debate shape media coverage of the Second World War?

How Media Concentration in the Age of Radio Prefigured Today’s Big Tech Debate - ProMarket

In the 1930s, staffers at the newly established Federal Communications Commission devised a novel rationale for limiting network power in radio, telephony, and the press. While much has changed since ...

www.promarket.org

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · May 25

Annals of anti-monopoly: Here is my review (critical yet appreciative) of Dan Schiller’s monumental history of 20th c. U.S. telecommunications policy — forty years in the making. Schiller is particularly suggestive on the FCC in the 1930s, a neglected topic, and on the efficacy of consent decrees.

Crossed Wires: The Conflicted History of U.S. Telecommunications, from the Post Office to the Internet. By Dan Schiller

How should we write the history of communications? In Crossed Wires, Dan Schiller provides us with one answer to this question. In a sprawling, often perce

academic.oup.com

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Jan 25

Announcing an open search for a position in Columbia’s Ph. D. program in communications

“We are particularly interested in candidates pursuing pioneering research agendas in: Science, Technology, and Society (STS); media law and policy; media history; global media….”

apply.interfolio.com/162364

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

apply.interfolio.com

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Jan 2

Annals of anti-monopoly: “…the safer course…decentralization of power, [but] the uniform power to regulate these enterprises [eg railroads], if they partake in the least of a monopoly character, must be equally extensive with the territory they occupy.” Sterne, _Constitutional History_ (1882).

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Dec 19

Annals of anti-monopoly: historian Shane Hamilton explains how shifts in the U.S. food distribution networks led to the blocked Kroger-Albertsons merger.

Shane Hamilton @shamilto.bsky.social · Dec 19

A little piece with Errol Schweizer (former VP of Whole Foods) on the historical significance of the blocked Kroger-Albertsons merger grocerynerd.substack.com/p/grocery-up...

Grocery Update #39: The High Cost of Cheap Food. And The Historic Halting Of A Grocery Merger.

Also: An Autumn Apple Smackdown. Because We Love Apples.

grocerynerd.substack.com

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Dec 19

Annals of anti-monopoly:

“Plutocracy is its own kind of dictatorship. When companies larger, wealthier and more powerful than most world governments threaten individual liberty with coercive private taxation and regulation, it threatens our way of life."

Jonathan Kanter, antitrust head. DOJ, 2024

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Dec 18

Thanks! Ellsworth’s son was patent commissioner in the 1830s. He backed Samuel Morse’s telegraph patent against British rivals. Morse fell in love with his daughter Anne and later covered the story up. Anne’s mother gave us the Biblical quote “What Hath God Wrought” that Dan Howe used as his title.

Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Dec 18

Agreed! Trust all is well in “the other place” — and the real world! :)

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Dec 18

His fellow Virginian? I am confused?

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Dec 18

The Kennedy assassination was the first historical event I remembered as well. My mother crying in front of the radio; the horses on TV during the funeral

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Richard R. John @rrjohnr.bsky.social · Dec 17

Annals of anti-monopoly…..in the news….

www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020...

Perspective | The Founders never intended the U.S. Postal Service to be managed like a business

The post office is supposed to serve the public good — not worry about profit.

www.washingtonpost.com

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