Chains of command: The rise and cruel reign of the franchise economy

With Brian Callaci, Economist and Campaigns Director, Strategic Organizing Center

Walk into a McDonald’s anywhere in the United States, and it will be virtually identical to every other McDonald’s in the country. Yet, that particular store is almost certainly owned and operated by an “independent” franchisee. While McDonald’s presents an image of centralized uniformity to the consumer, it shows a different face to the small business owners operating its stores under its control and the workers preparing its product to its standards. How then does McDonald’s — and its big business peers — manage to be two things at once?

Economist Brian Fallaci’s Chains of Command explains the decades-long fight franchisors waged at the interstices of antitrust and labor and employment to win the right to exercise centralized control over geographically dispersed businesses while shifting legal and economic liabilities and burdens onto nominally independent small-business owners. Ultimately, franchisors even enlisted small business franchisees themselves in this fight, by appealing to franchisee fears over unionization. In this talk, Callaci will explore the this apparent contradiction — centralized corporate control alongside decentralized ownership and employment — and the key questions it raises about the organization of modern capitalism and the allocation of corporate responsibility.

About the speaker

Brian Callaci is an economist and the campaigns director at the Strategic Organizing Center, a coalition of labor unions based in New York City and Washington, D.C. In addition to his book, he has published research in The Review of Economics, Statistics, Politics & Society, and Enterprise & Society, among others, as well as in numerous popular outlets.