by Richard Morrison
The American Institute for Economic Research
Sohrab Ahmari wants conservatives to stand up for the little guy against big business. Despite being an influential voice among traditionalists, however, his book Tyranny, Inc‘s criticism of corporate America reads more like those of a socialist pamphleteer of a century ago than a modern conservative pundit. Even compared to the populist politicians whose names appear among the book’s dust-jacket endorsements — Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) — Ahmari’s anti-capitalism comes off as not so much a proposal for reasonable reforms as a repudiation of the entire modern economy.
The core of the book’s argument is that business decisions that negatively affect workers today are equivalent in their force to the coercive power of government, meaning that Americans in the 21st century are subject to an economic system deserving of the title’s verdict: tyranny.