Director of the Open Markets Institute Barry Lynn had a sobering message for UNI’s World Congress on Tuesday: we are facing tremendous threats to our liberty.

“This threat is not Trump or Brexit,” he said. “They are symptoms of the threat. Today what threatens us is the concentration of economic power.”

Autocratic, private corporate power is dictating the terms of how we work, what we buy, and the information we consume. Because of this concentration in the marketplace, we have an illusion of choice at the grocery store, at the newsstand, and on the job market.

The effects are staggering.

“Wages in America are down 20 per cent plus over one generation – due to the monopoly on where we can sell our work,” he gave as an example.

Our monopoly economy has been developing for years, but it has been exacerbated by digitalisation.

“Big tech, big data, and artificial intelligence—they know everything about us, while we know next to little about them. They control not by public government or by open market but by private algorithm,” he said.

However, just as previous revolutions have broken the chains of a monopoly on choice, a monopoly on information, and a monopoly of political power. We can do that too, and the labour movement must lead the way.

“We shall rebuild our democracy. We shall rebuild our communities. We shall rebuild our families, and we shall rebuild the love we have for one another. We are not consumers as they define us.  We are not merely workers as they define us. We are citizens of the world and seek nothing less than to receive the full rights of our citizenship,” Lynn said.

“Our fight is for workers rights, but it is also for liberty.

“All wait for labour to take the lead. Labour is the natural leader in this fight.”