Our antitrust laws are far too weak. If you just take a look at the business world today, it is blatantly obvious that companies are gaining too much power. Take, for example, Microsoft. This company is so big that its president, Bill Gates, has more power than the president of the United States. Microsoft controls over 90 percent of the market for computer operating system software, and it is showing no signs of losing any of its market share. Other companies are powerful, too. Consider Nike, a company that can pay its workers only pennies per hour and then charge consumers hundreds of dollars for its products. Another example is General Electric. Not only is General Electric powerful in the electronics industry, it has also branched out into other industries as well. It owns NBC, a network that many Americans depend on for news. In the past, Americans could count on the news to give them an objective report of what’s going on in our nation. Now, they hear only the stories that the corporate bigwigs want them to hear. These corporations are so powerful and so impersonal that they’ll just get up and leave if they think they can get more money elsewhere. New York City lost over a million jobs in the manufacturing industry between 1970 and 1984 because companies would rather put their factories in Third World nations than pay Americans a decent wage. If our society is to return to its status as the greatest in the world, Congress and the courts need to broaden the scope of antitrust laws. We need to make sure that any corporation powerful enough to control public opinion or to ignore its obligations to society is broken up.
1. What ethical values seem to support this author’s conclusion? Explain.
2. What words or phrases are ambiguous in this essay? Explain.
3. Construct an essay giving an opinion opposite to that of the author of this essay.
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