The reason American governance is dysfunctional is simple: We have turned much of our sovereignty over to private interests in the form of monopolies. So while our politicians can discuss important social questions, the structure of our political economy lies outside the realm of our democratic debate.

This became obvious yet again today when the New York Times revealed that a team of anti-monopoly researchers had been fired from the New America Foundation, an influential Google-funded think tank in Washington, after the researchers pointed out that Google misused its power.

Monopoly, it turns out, is the power of which we dare not speak.

Source: We Said Google Was Dangerously Powerful, Then Google Proved Us Right.