FTC Chair Lina Khan is doing essential work. Naturally attracts attacks.

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For several decades, Washington has been ruled by a pro-monopoly consensus, allowing our country to be increasingly taken over by a handful of powerful companies that deprive us of our economic freedoms. Nearly 75% of industries have become more consolidated in recent decades, and at the current rate of consolidation, by 2070 there will only be one company in each industry.

A new generation of leaders, like Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan, are trying to solve the monopoly crisis that threatens our freedoms, economic prosperity and democracy. Naturally, working to democratize the economy and give power back to the people generates attacks from powerful monopolists who restrict trade.

This includes Barbara Comstock’s recent op-ed titled “How the FTC Chair Is Alienating the Left, Right and Center” (StarTribune.com, May 21). Comstock’s overall thesis is that there is widespread opposition to Khan’s actions, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, including a poll by Fight Corporate Monopolies that found 61% of Minnesotans believe policymakers should do more to seize monopoly power.

One of the more puzzling attacks by Comstock, who advises NetChoice, which advocates against Big Tech’s attempts to dominate companies, is when she says: “No one person can overturn the law.” Comstock argues that Khan’s efforts to move beyond the so-called consumer welfare standard – a legal theory that has dominated antitrust jurisprudence – are contrary to antitrust law.

The irony is that the adoption of a consumer welfare standard reflected a radical reinterpretation of the laws that protected us from the abuses of corporate monopolies.

Congress has passed a variety of antitrust laws over the years with the express purpose of cracking down on consolidation. This included the passage of the aptly named Celler-Kefauver Antimerger Act in 1950, intended to strengthen the Clayton Act, the federal law regulating mergers.

However, in the late 1970s, a legal movement began to gain ground that thwarted the enforcement of these key laws. In 1982, the Reagan administration made radical changes to the way merger laws were enforced, introducing a hands-off approach to enforcement based on the theory that monopolies were not only good for consumers but that any harm to workers, small businesses should be ignored and communities . Without a single action by Congress, antitrust laws have been rewritten to serve monopolists.

Last year, thanks in part to Khan’s leadership, the FTC and the Justice Department released new merger enforcement guidelines. Not only were the new guidelines based on feedback from more than 30,000 Americans who submitted public comments, most of which called on antitrust enforcers to crack down on mergers, but they were the first to cite precedent from previous antitrust cases. Tech monopolies might prefer pro-trust legal standards created out of thin air, but our antitrust laws were enacted to limit the consolidation of power. Khan is simply following the law.

Comstock also claims that Khan wants to control tech companies, but tech companies have amassed control over us. The FTC’s antitrust lawsuit against Amazon details how the company’s e-commerce dominance allowed it to raise prices for goods sold on other companies’ websites. Whether you shop on Amazon or not, it controls the prices you pay.

Google’s search monopoly allows it to control the front door of the Internet, determining what you see and setting conditions for companies that want to be seen. Meanwhile, Apple controls the types of apps you have on the devices you claim to own. Khan doesn’t try to micromanage technology; she’s just trying to make them accountable to all of us.

Comstock’s most absurd attack concerns a recent FTC lawsuit seeking to block a massive fashion industry merger that would have given one company control of most of the retailers at the local mall. Comstock said the move exposed Khan’s radical leftism, but the FTC, which includes two Republicans, voted 5-0 to block the merger.

For the first time in forty years, monopoly power is losing control over our country. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but for now I am grateful to leaders for ignoring monopolies, following the law and listening to the people.

Justin Stofferahn is the antitrust director of the Minnesota Farmers Union, a grassroots organization that has represented family farmers, ranchers and rural communities in Minnesota since 1918.