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A review by roach
Fusionen, Kartelle, Skandale: das Bundeskartellamt als Wettbewerbshüter und Verbraucheranwalt by Werner Kurzlechner
informative
slow-paced
3.5
It became even more important to expose the black sheep. The fact that this requires detective work and sometimes goes hand in hand with investigative journalistic research differentiates the activity of the cartel office at least partially from the dull daily routine of other agencies.
Throughout five decades, its civil servants have demonstrated a lot more investigative skills, dedication, and fighting spirit than the average bureaucrat. In soccer, one might say: The team plays offensively.
(Quote translated from German.)
Going to trade school and learning about all the things that make capitalism tick in business class also includes all the "fun" idealistic theories of the free market and how actual real-life conditions just corrupt that idea in basically every way. Which is why there isn't really any place that has a definitive free market and instead adjusts the concept in different ways to hopefully turn it into something that works in the real world. And so whole institutions were developed to overlook the market, attempting to balance out healthy competitiveness and social stability. It's a whole complex science in itself and I've become interested in how these guardians of the competitive market were founded and how they work.
Kurzlechner's book deals with Germany's Federal Cartel Office and basically chronicles its entire history from its founding until the time of the book's release in the 2000s.
As expected, there were a lot of dry sections in this and lots of pages overflowing with company names and numbers that I couldn't possibly retain. But overall, this book managed to make the subject rather accessible, and a lot of its written in a casual way. While I wasn't very interested in the pre-WWII era of capitalism, before monopolies were even really considered as something dangerous, it did get a lot more interesting in the second half of the 20th century, when the cartel office already existed for a little while and continually tried to find its footing.
From journalistic backlash towards the cartel office as being the first sign of a "government-controlled market" to the cheers of consumers that were taught about exploitative, corrupt companies thanks to the cartel office's transparency. The difficult creation and development of laws against market-dominating practices and the balancing of the cartel office's power under the eye of the government.
There is a lot to be covered here and the author pinpoints a bunch of major incidents to look at more thoroughly. I especially liked the whole chapter about publishers of opinion-forming media and the significance of monitoring that market in particular, as well as the chapter about the complicated history of the energy market.
As a general overview of this agency's history, spanning so many years, it's a rather approachable and interesting book.
Going to trade school and learning about all the things that make capitalism tick in business class also includes all the "fun" idealistic theories of the free market and how actual real-life conditions just corrupt that idea in basically every way. Which is why there isn't really any place that has a definitive free market and instead adjusts the concept in different ways to hopefully turn it into something that works in the real world. And so whole institutions were developed to overlook the market, attempting to balance out healthy competitiveness and social stability. It's a whole complex science in itself and I've become interested in how these guardians of the competitive market were founded and how they work.
Kurzlechner's book deals with Germany's Federal Cartel Office and basically chronicles its entire history from its founding until the time of the book's release in the 2000s.
As expected, there were a lot of dry sections in this and lots of pages overflowing with company names and numbers that I couldn't possibly retain. But overall, this book managed to make the subject rather accessible, and a lot of its written in a casual way. While I wasn't very interested in the pre-WWII era of capitalism, before monopolies were even really considered as something dangerous, it did get a lot more interesting in the second half of the 20th century, when the cartel office already existed for a little while and continually tried to find its footing.
From journalistic backlash towards the cartel office as being the first sign of a "government-controlled market" to the cheers of consumers that were taught about exploitative, corrupt companies thanks to the cartel office's transparency. The difficult creation and development of laws against market-dominating practices and the balancing of the cartel office's power under the eye of the government.
There is a lot to be covered here and the author pinpoints a bunch of major incidents to look at more thoroughly. I especially liked the whole chapter about publishers of opinion-forming media and the significance of monitoring that market in particular, as well as the chapter about the complicated history of the energy market.
As a general overview of this agency's history, spanning so many years, it's a rather approachable and interesting book.