Two of the biggest business trends in the past few years have been record amounts of labour action and a rise in antitrust cases. This year alone, for example, America has recorded the most working days missed due to strikes in almost a quarter of a century, and has also seen the most aggressive anti-monopoly action in decades. Both of these trends, which are also present in Europe and elsewhere, are a reaction to decades of corporate consolidation and record profits.While it once seemed that rising wage inflation and a pandemic-era trend towards supply chain de-risking would start to erode corporate power, the latest UN Trade and Development Report shows that hasn’t happened yet. In fact, both consolidation and profits increased dramatically during Covid-19, with worrisome repercussions including price gouging and food insecurity.
近幾年經濟領域有兩大趨勢，一是勞工行動的數量達到了創紀錄水準，另一個是反壟斷案件的增多。例如，僅今年一年，美國因罷工而損失的工作日就創下了近四分之一個世紀以來的最高紀錄，與此同時出現了幾十年來最激進的反壟斷行動。這兩種趨勢——在歐洲和其他地區也同樣存在——是對幾十年來的企業合併趨勢和創紀錄利潤的反應。