The Problems You Can Solve: Stacy Mitchell on David Morris’s Legacy

Danny Caine 
We’re continuing our remembrance of ILSR co-founder David Morris, who passed away in June. David was a hugely influential thinker, both within ILSR and throughout the antimonopoly movement. I can think of no better way to honor his legacy and explore his prescient philosophy Than to talk to those he worked with directly.

So for a few episodes, we’re gonna do just that. Interview the folks at ILSR who had the honor of working with David. First up is Stacy Mitchell, ILSR co-director and leader of the Independent Business Initiative. Stacy started at ILSR in 1997 when she was hired by none other than David Morris himself. My conversation with Stacy was truly inspiring. From her early days writing research memos for David to her current position as a leading thinker in the antitrust movement,

David Morris’s influence has guided Stacy’s career. I hope you’re as inspired by her reflections and remembrances as I am.

Stacy Mitchell, thanks so much for being here.

Stacy Mitchell
Nice to be with you, Danny.

Danny Caine 
I’m sure many of our listeners are familiar with your great work. they might not be as familiar is you got interested in independent business and antitrust issues, how you landed at ILSR. So can you tell us how you came to work here and what impact did David Morris have on your early time?

Stacy Mitchell
Impact is a bit of an understatement. David hired me in 1997. And the first, I don’t know, quite a long time in my career, I worked for David and he was sort of the primary reader and critic and guide in my work.

I, I found ILSR when I was living in Minneapolis, St. Paul, where, ⁓ ILSR had an office and, know, I had gotten out of college and I had done some work in the labor movement and I had done some work in, ⁓ kind of more of an academic setting. I studied history and, you know, neither was very satisfying. Like one, you know, one was a bit academic and one was, you know, I wanted something that sort of married the two and.

I remember seeing this ad for a research assistant at ILSR and going to the website at that time, if you can believe it, which was very rudimentary and reading about the organization and being completely fascinated and feeling like, this is really a framework for a different way of thinking about how we organize the economy and society. And that framework really was very much David’s So yeah, I came in for an interview and ⁓ ultimately got a job up here as a researcher. And so in my kind of early days at ILSR, David had a voracious appetite for information, he wanted to learn about all kinds of things. And so I wrote him memos on various aspects of the economy and various policies that we were that we were studying. And so it was a great ⁓ sort of training ground for doing research and doing analysis through this particular lens.

Danny Caine 
And when you wrote these memos, were they things that he was curious about and pointed you towards, or was it more self-directed or a little bit of both?

Stacy Mitchell
You know, it went both ways. there were definitely things at the time we were publishing a magazine. It was called New Rules And so I was hired to write for that magazine and to do research for it. And he was sort of the editor in chief. And so there would be things that would be assigned in terms of topics. And, but within that, there was also a lot of freedom to kind of pursue things that came up along the way or to, or to pitch different kinds of ideas for things that we might look at.

Often the sort of areas that he would send me off to explore were things that, where it was a lot of open territory. So it wasn’t very like super specific kinds of research questions. would be things more like, you know, our banking system is really consolidated. Like what would, you know, what has been happening to independent banks? Why are small banks disappearing? Does that matter? Does that have an impact on communities?

So very big questions. there was a lot of room to kind of maneuver and explore within the context of those questions.

I was looking back at some of those memos, you in reflecting on my work with David, you know, after we learned about his death last month. And, you know, he would write memos back to me that would be comments on drafts of things that I had sent him. And they were so fascinating to read. Like there was one of 1998. And I had started working at that point

looking at independent business and at the rise of Walmart and we were, I was working on this sort of report that eventually became a little booklet that I think we were calling the homegrown economy, ultimately became the hometown advantage. And I was writing sections of that and sending it to him. And one of his comments back to me, as I said, in October of 1998 was like, yeah, I wonder if we should, we should really bring Amazon into this. you know, and at the time Amazon was like three years old and barely

you know, a spec in the But he was very much onto that trend early. And you’re very aware that Amazon was getting all of these sales tax breaks that were really fueling its growth.

Danny Caine 
That reminds me of something I keep hearing as I read about David and listen to people reflecting on him is that he was really He knew about a lot of things before they really happened. So I think Amazon is one great example to see that coming as early as 98. In what other ways do you think David was ahead of his time?

Stacy Mitchell
Mm. Yeah.

I mean, there were there are many examples of this. The one that stands out to me, I think because of the sort of the timing of when I was hired was around trade. You know, in the 1990s, there was this kind of gung ho in both parties, but really led by Bill Clinton. Desire to kind of open up trade and, you know, pursue these kind of free trade agreements, quote unquote, NAFTA World Trade Organization, with this idea that we should allow sort of corporations to roam across borders freely, you know, even as, you know, workers and everybody else is more constrained by national boundaries that we should allow sort of corporate money to move around the world and that this was going to be a great thing. Like even if we saw jobs go overseas, that, you know, the benefits of trade would would to everyone.

And David saw right through that and was one of a number of voices who are who were leading the way and trying to oppose that, including that, you know, there was a big fight in sort of street protests and organizing around international trade meeting in Seattle in 1999. And he was part of that. But you know, to stand up against the free trade orthodoxy at that time was really quite something because it was just so

much of, you know, economists and policymakers and everybody was on board. And to suggest that this was maybe not a good idea was, you know, really to swim upstream against that tide of opinion. And of course, now 25 years later, we look back. And I mean, the evidence is very clear that this not only, you know, weakened our economy and harmed a lot of people and fed inequality, but you know, is also at the root of a lot of our

our political breakdown. ⁓ You know, I mean, David really understood that if you if you pulled the economic rug out from under communities, if you kind of destroyed their agency to, you know, to manage their own affairs and to have like real productive capacity and so on, that that ultimately had serious like social and civic consequences to it. And we are now living living with that today.

Danny Caine 
Do you think there are areas where the world has yet to catch up to what David was thinking about and advocating for?

Stacy Mitchell
I mean, yes. I think there’s a broader sense now than there was, you know, even 10 years ago, that the political economy that the organization of our economy is dysfunctional and that the that it doesn’t actually meet our needs and has a host of problems. And so in that sense, I think there’s more awareness now that we need an alternative framework. You know, David really understood that the way that our economy is structured, like the nature of the enterprises.

how big they are, where they’re located, what they do, just sort of every how everything functions in our economy. Isn’t by accident. it’s not something that just happened because of quote, market forces or the weather, you know, or whatever it is a product of policy choices. And he spent a lot of time really, a big part of his goal was to sort of peel back the curtain and say, like, look, we made these decisions, and it led us to here. And if we made different decisions, we would be in a different place. And I think that sense of, understanding that, that it’s not just an economy, but it’s a political economy in the sense that it is the product of policy choices was a big part of what his work was all about. And, you know, he was doing that at a time when there, really wasn’t that kind of consideration. I mean, even, even among, you know, sort of liberal lawmakers, there was a sense of like, well, you know, you can’t mess with quote markets. Like maybe you can offer, you know, subsidies to a company to do something, or you can, provide a welfare benefit to people who are harmed. But the idea that you should get in at the front end and sort of change the basic rules of the game to get different outcomes straight out of the gate from the economy. That wasn’t the way that elected officials thought then and largely still isn’t, but I think there’s been some progress on that front.

Danny Caine 
You mentioned that impact isn’t even half of he’s just shaped ILSR and all of us who work here. I, even I feel that I never had the good fortune of meeting him. I’ve worked here less than a year, but you mentioned that the memo you wrote turned into homegrown economy, which turned into hometown advantage, which is the name of a newsletter that I am regularly working on. So even I feel it. So from

Stacy Mitchell 
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Danny Caine 
You know, writing these memos in 97 and 98 till now, you’re a co-director of ILSR and you’re the leader of the Independent Business team. How has David’s philosophy and work impacted what you’re working on right now at ILSR?

Stacy Mitchell
one of the things that David talked a lot about was the importance of marrying authority and responsibility. And essentially, the notion was that if you can organize society in a way that the people who are making the decisions are also the people who feel the impact of those decisions, you will get better decisions and better outcomes. So he talked about this idea of like, well, you know, if if owners of a factory are the ones who the air that comes out of the smokestack or drink the water that dumped into the into the river from the factory like they will choose to clean that up because they experience the impacts right and so this idea of trying to both broaden and diversify and localize decision-making

he saw as really kind of a key goal of how we structure the economy, because it would change the kind of outcomes that we get. And so instead of communities being beholden to these distant corporations, who would make decisions based on their bottom line and not feel the impacts of those decision and barely even the people on the ground who were affected by those decisions, if you could localize business and production and ownership, then you would get different kinds of outcomes. And that’s really a guiding theme for the Independent Business Initiative

you know, we’ve seen so much consolidation in the economy and not only are we seeing in a lot of sectors that that’s produced worse outcomes, just in terms of like,

grocery prices are higher, healthcare doesn’t work that great, know, like it just purely on a kind of performance of those industries, like you don’t get very good marks if you look at a lot of these consolidated sectors. But then the other problem with it is, you know, that you get this, separation of where the decisions are made and who feels those impacts. And so we really see that as a big.

part of the mission of the independent business initiative is is really bringing that that decision making and power home to local communities. And I think it speaks to the thing that I mentioned earlier of this idea of like, instead of having an economy that you know, so often right now, we’re in this situation where we are trying to write regulations to try to stop

companies from doing bad things and to kind of claw back their behavior because all of their incentives are often to do the wrong thing, to do the harmful thing. And so instead of trying to fix it on the back end, why not structure business? Why not structure sort of our systems in a way that that are naturally more aligned with our values and the outcomes we want to see that are more democratic, more responsive to community?

more thoughtful about the long-term implications of their decisions. If we set business up that way from the beginning, then we have to do a lot less work on the back end, but that means having smart policies that structure the economy that way.

Danny Caine
I love this metaphor of the factory exhaust that goes right into the boardroom. It was part of our previous episode where we re-aired an interview with David from 2016.

Stacy Mitchell
Right.

Danny Caine
Let’s apply that to one of the current interests of the Independent Business team. So like, how does that show up the food desert fight in Robinson-Patman and local groceries? what would a David Morris approach to this consolidation of the grocery market, ignoring the Robinson-Patman Act food deserts? What would that look like in that scenario?

Stacy Mitchell 
Yeah, I mean, by creating this unfair…situation where big grocers can use their leverage over suppliers to force up prices for local grocers and then drive them out of business. You know, what you’re doing is kind of robbing communities of their agency. I one of the really interesting things about why local ownership matters is that, you know, when you have local grocers who are part of the that community has a measure of insulation from big chain grocers, they can’t be

mistreated because people who live in that community, they have a great local grocery store, right? They have that choice. So they’re not dependent on Kroger or Walmart in the same way that a community that lacks a local grocery store.

one of things that we’ve we’ve seen in recent decades is as local grocery stores were driven out by those policy choices, you know, the big chains looked around and they said, Well, we don’t actually have to be in this small community. We don’t actually have to be in this poor neighborhood because we know people gonna have to just travel to our other stores to another neighborhood to shop. know, before when that that neighborhood had local grocery stores, you couldn’t get away with that. ⁓

if you wanted to compete for those dollars, and you were Kroger or Walmart, you had to actually open a store in the neighborhood and serve that neighborhood. So that kind of local power changes outcomes. Like not only do you have a grocery store, but you have this kind of position with regard to these corporations, they can’t take advantage of you in the same way. The other example that came immediately to mind and thinking about your question is, is local pharmacies.

know, so one of the laws that we’ve studied in North Dakota, you know, they they don’t allow chains to own pharmacies, it’s only independent who can operate a pharmacy in the state of North Dakota. And that law, think really speaks to this idea of David’s quite well in the sense of like the person who is making the decisions is a member of the community and they are a healthcare professional, right? They are not CVS, which is you know, this

giant vertically integrated corporation that owns an insurer and a pharmacy benefit management company and retail pharmacies and so on and so forth where their goal is to extract as much as they can for their own bottom line. They don’t care about health care. They don’t really care about the communities that they’re serving. That’s all incidental to what their real goal is, right, which is making money. And so they will cut any corner, take advantage of whatever they can in order to do that.

that’s a just a completely different calculus than what you see with a local pharmacy, where they’re member of the community, like their goal is to have a healthy community to serve their neighbors. I mean, they’re going to see people that are their customers, you know, in the aisles of the grocery store, right? Like it’s a just a very different set of goals that go into the kinds of decisions that that local pharmacist makes.

And so it’s no surprise that independent pharmacies, according to Consumer Reports and others are cheaper, that they offer far superior service, that they provide a broader range of healthcare needs and screenings and other kinds of tests, you know, and we see in rural communities and in urban areas where there’s a lack of other healthcare providers, pharmacists are often stepping up and filling those gaps in different kinds of ways. And that’s a perfect example, I think, of this notion of

how local ownership, local decision making changes outcomes from the get go.

Danny Caine
of the things I really love about ILSR’s philosophy is both fighting monopoly power and building local power. As much as we’re trying to prevent the corporate abuses of CVS, we’re also trying to prop up and support the local pharmacies where people are building local power

Stacy Mitchell 
Yeah.

Danny Caine
in spite of this corporate influence and power. So we’ve done a really good job, I think, of talking through David’s philosophy and work. one of the things seems like just a really interesting guy. I wonder if you’ve got any memories of working with him that give a sense of just who he was and the passion he had for this work.

Stacy Mitchell
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, he was an amazing thinker and analyst

those of us who, who worked for him really learned an approach to research that wasn’t simply about kind of looking at academic studies as valuable, as valuable as those can be. It was about talking to people in the field, like talking to business owners, talking to, folks on the ground and communities as a way to learn about how industries actually worked and where the problems were and how to solve those problems.

remember as a young researcher it was a little you know intimidating to just like call up you know somebody cold call a pharmacy and be like hey can I talk to the owner about different aspects of your business but that’s how we did research you know and that very much comes from from David and the other co-founders of of ILSR

he could be very intimidating. He was very demanding. You know, I can remember, you know, writing these memos or drafting articles for him. And, you know, his questions would really put you to the test.

You had to learn to a real kind of sharp thinking to what you were doing. one of the things I…

learned from him was as much as ILSR is out there in the world saying, Hey, there is a ⁓ different way of kind of sort of radically different way that we could organize society. And here’s why it would be better. That’s not like a soft and fuzzy. We’re not putting out there a soft and fuzzy vision. And that’s a lot because of David, like David was like hard numbers, actually back it up, figure out how does this, you know, scale like what does this actually look like?

He wasn’t someone who ⁓ sort of entertained or kind of lived with fuzzy notions or kind of soft ideas about how things should be. I guess the other thing that’s coming to mind, he was in the one sense very

demanding and had really high standards for how we approached the research that we did and the ideas that we were putting out in the world. But he was also just an incredible supporter in the sense of the kind of freedom.

that I had to explore different things and to develop ideas and bodies of work. ⁓ Several of the programs that exist today, you know, really grew out of people who were working for David, who, you know, in my case, became increasingly interested in small business and concentration and, you know, eventually turned it into a program that now has a whole team of people working on those issues. And that kind of, freedom to explore and to build things.

you know, was very much a gift from David.

Danny Caine
Well, I find all of this very inspiring. someone who, you know, again, never had the chance to meet David, but nonetheless, it’s really gratifying and inspiring to hear about him. Final question. If our listeners also find themselves inspired, ⁓ let’s talk proactive action in our communities. If our listeners are inspired by hearing about David, what can they do in their communities right now to kind of carry on the spirit of his

Stacy Mitchell
Yeah, you know, it’s interesting, David and his other co-founders started ILSR in the early 1970s in Washington, DC, and they started doing very local work.

Um, you know, working in the Adams Morgan neighborhood and trying to figure out, know, here was a community that really was, you know, a lot of the economic wealth was being extracted. There was not a lot of sense of, of control or self determination. And so looking for ways to build that capacity and that self determination. so, you know, early examples of like urban agriculture and. early visions of rooftop solar, this kind of very local

on the ground work. And then towards the end of David’s career, you know, after he left his leadership role at ILSR, I guess now it’s been more than a decade. You know, he and his wife Harriet moved to Point Reyes, a small community in California. And David began working on all these community projects, you know, started getting, you know, with his neighbors and other folks in the community, they were doing things like looking at creating a community land trust.

would own commercial buildings so that they could develop local community serving he and others were working on on a thing that had there was a military federal government owned a building an empty building that they finally convinced to sell to to local folks who were going to develop 150 units of affordable housing. You know, there were a number of these kinds of like local

issues, local self-reliance issues in the community that David really kind of went back to his roots in a sense and began to work on. And so I say all of that to say in this moment when it can feel really overwhelming, the kinds of things that we’re seeing in the world, that there is an extraordinary power in recognizing that you can actually solve things even if you don’t know how to do it, by taking the simple step of beginning to talk to a few of your neighbors and going for that from there of saying, you

we have this issue in our community, we need a grocery store, we need this, we’re concerned about that. And going and talking to a couple of people that you know, and then they in turn thinking about who do they know? And who do you know in the community who might know something about that? And finding your way through that process to wherever it may lead, whether it’s an investment co-op to buy a local building as David was working on or something else. You don’t

have to know how to fix it. You just have to know how to call someone that you know and start that conversation and go from there. And I think that that’s incredibly encouraging given our crisis of isolation and loneliness and despair that

that process of engaging with your friends and neighbors about something is its own reward. Like you get to hang out with people and actually kind of work together and have all the benefits of that face-to-face contact and maybe along the way do something powerful in your community and maybe that leads to something powerful in terms of a change in state or federal policy.

Danny Caine
I say this every once in a while on our show, but that’s a pretty great definition of building local power right there. ⁓ Stacy Mitchell, thank you so much coming on our show and sharing your memories of working with David. I really appreciate it.

Stacy Mitchell 
Thank you so much for doing this.

Danny Caine 
Check out the show notes for some of Stacy’s recent article, The Great Grocery Squeeze from The Atlantic. The article inspired a recent episode of 99 % Invisible, which is an essential listen. Both are linked in the show notes.

I also encourage you to dive into the trove of David Morris’s work in writing on ilsr.org. I’ve linked to a landing page with many examples, as well as a touching note of remembrance from Stacy and fellow ILSR co-director, John Farrell. This episode of Building Local Power was produced by me, Danny Caine with the help of Reggie Rucker.

I did the editing with help from Téa Noelle, who also composed the music. Thank you so much for listening and see you in two weeks.

Stacy Mitchell: “The Great Grocery Squeeze”

99% Invisible: “Food Deserts”

A Letter to the ILSR Community from co-directors Stacy Mitchell and John Farrell

David Morris: 50 Years of Pioneering Works and Impact

ILSR: 50 Years, 50 Works (featuring many by David Morris)