--- title: Business: It's Time to Break Up Power Monopolies description: Why we should break up power monopolies, why 'local food' is a myth, the high-tech war on illegal logging and more. canonical: https://time.com/4029314/break-up-power-monopolies/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-09-10T16:01:17.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:01:43.952Z article:section: Ideas og:title: It's Time to Break Up Power Monopolies og:description: These are today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4029314/break-up-power-monopolies/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: It's Time to Break Up Power Monopolies twitter:description: These are today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # It's Time to Break Up Power Monopolies by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Sep 10, 2015 4:01 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Sep 10, 2015 4:01 PM UTC **1\.** [**To get the innovation we need, it’s time to break up power monopolies.**](http://www.vox.com/2015/9/9/9287719/utilities-monopoly) By David Roberts in Vox **2\.** [**There’s no such thing as local food.**](http://theplate.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/08/why-theres-no-such-thing-as-local-food/) By Dan Stone in National Geographic’s The Plate **3\.** [**DNA testing and perimeter drones: Here’s how you fight illegal logging.**](http://www.wri.org/blog/2015/09/4-cutting-edge-technologies-catch-illegal-loggers) By Emily Kaldjian, Loretta Cheung and Meaghan Parker at the World Resources Institute **4\.** [**Here’s why American colleges are nervous about China’s economic woes.**](http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/09/07/local-colleges-closely-watching-chinese-economy/HfdXvKVZg7kROmhZ5Fw6rJ/story.html) By Laura Krantz and Jacqueline Tempera in the Boston Globe **5\.** [**Learning to code doesn’t involve a lot of math. It does require a lot of Googling, though.**](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/09/you-dont-have-to-be-good-at-math-to-learn-to-code/403342/) By Olga Khazan in the Atlantic  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4029314/break-up-power-monopolies/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4029314/break-up-power-monopolies/"},"headline":"It's Time to Break Up Power Monopolies","datePublished":"2015-09-10T16:01:17.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:01:43.952Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/4029314/break-up-power-monopolies/","keywords":["Innovation","Google","climate","Electricity","logging"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4029314/break-up-power-monopolies/","name":"It's Time to Break Up Power Monopolies"}}]}] ```