Why “The Sling”
The hallmarks of neoliberalism—globalization and free trade, financialization, and deregulation—were supposed to bring about broad economic prosperity to the United States. In fact, as both conservative and liberal critics have shown, neoliberalism has resulted in a hollowing out of local rural economies, massive inequality, destruction of unions, and increases in concentration and market power. Neoliberal policies have also failed to increase productivity and overall economic growth. Nonetheless, the mainstream press and most Washington policy institutes have adopted the neoliberal paradigm.
The last several years has seen an American workforce much less amenable to neoliberal promises and its incapacity to deliver to any Americans other than the very wealthy. We think of these Americans as the David facing the corporate Goliath created by neoliberalism. The analogy of David’s sling represents the peaceful movement of the majority seeking to restore the policies that can lead to shared prosperity. We named this publication The Sling in the hope that the ideas discussed here can foster this goal.
The Sling is open to contributors of any political persuasion. Moreover, the opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the Utah Project, or the University of Utah, its economics department or its College of Law. To submit an article for publication, please see our submissions page and refer to our writing and editing guidelines.
Our Editorial Board
Hal Singer
Hal Singer is an expert in antitrust, consumer protection, and regulation. He has researched, published, and testified on competition-related issues in a wide variety of industries, including media, pharmaceuticals, sports, and finance. Courts have certified seventeen classes in reliance on Dr. Singer’s economic impact models, including in three monopsony cases. He has also served as expert for the Federal Trade Commission in a merger challenge and for several U.S. states in monopoly cases. He is a managing director at Econ One, and executive director of the Utah Project, an interdisciplinary institute researching antitrust and consumer protection issues at the University of Utah, where he teaches a course on economics and the law to undergraduate and law school students.
Daniel Hanley
Daniel is a senior legal analyst at the Open Markets Institute. His research focuses on antitrust law, political economy, and how the law structures power.
His scholarship has been published in various law journals and news outlets. He has also published multiple research reports for the Open Markets Institute and the Center for Media & Digital Governance (formerly the Center for Journalism and Liberty).
You can contact him at hanley[at]openmarketsinstitute.org and follow him on X at @danielahanley, BlueSky at @danielahanley, Mastodon at @danielahanley, and connect with him on LinkedIn.
Dilan Alma
Dilan Alma is a solicitor qualified in England & Wales and an attorney-at-law in Turkey, specialising in competition law and group litigation. She is an Associate General Counsel at Pogust Goodhead, a London-based claimant law firm focused on large-scale collective actions, and previously spent nearly five years as an Associate at Rosenblatt & Company, a boutique US law firm. She holds an LLM in Competition, Innovation and Trade Law from The London School of Economics (LSE), funded by the European Union’s Jean Monnet Scholarship, and spent two years as a Researcher and six as an editor at the Competition Law and Policy Research Centre in Istanbul. She has also served as an editor for #tarih, a history newsletter with nearly 100,000 subscribers in Turkey. You can follow her on X and LinkedIn.
Darren Bush
Darren Bush is a law professor whose scholarship focuses on antitrust and economic regulation. He holds a Ph.D. in economics and a J.D. from the University of Utah. His dissertation focused on creating competition in deregulated electricity markets. He previously served as a trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, investigating mergers and anticompetitive conduct in energy markets and airlines. He has testified numerous times before congressional committees and federal commissions. He also holds a fourth-degree black sash in Northern Shaolin/Northern Praying Mantis Kung Fu.
Ted Tatos
Ted Tatos is a quantitative microeconomist specializing in econometric and statistical analysis, with nearly 30 years of consulting experience in antitrust, labor, intellectual property and commercial damages. He holds a BA in economics from Duke University and an MS in Statistics from the University of Utah, where he has taught econometrics as an adjunct professor. He is Associate Economics Editor of the Antitrust Bulletin and has testified in federal and state court. He writes frequently on NCAA labor restraints. His paper on collegiate athletes as research subjects in concussion studies formed the basis of a documentary by The Athletic.
Amanda G. Lewis
Amanda Lewis is an antitrust attorney who worked in the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition from 2012, including on the Staples/Office Depot and Sysco/U.S. Foods litigation teams. As Counsel-Detailee to the House Antitrust Subcommittee, she led the Amazon portion of the Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets and was one of the main authors of its Majority Staff Report. She also led the Subcommittee’s health care work, which included two bills that became law. She previously practiced at Cravath, Swaine & Moore and holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School.