Economy
Can Divestment Campaigns Still Work?
Decades after apartheid South Africa, student activists face a new obstacle: the financialization of university endowments.
Saving Bidenomics
Biden’s industrial policy program promises a massive shift from decades of neoliberal orthodoxy. Can it deliver inclusive gains in time?
An Innovation System That Works
Before rushing to build the next DARPA, we need to assess the R&D model we have.
What Are Families For?
A liberal economist and a family abolitionist agree: our economic system makes human flourishing depend on social units it can’t sustain.
How Not to Do Industrial Policy
Instead of pouring public funds into private industry—as the U.S. did with COVID-19 vaccines—we must build public capacity and prioritize public objectives.
Bond Villains
How a little-understood feature of urban finance—municipal bonds—fuels racial inequality.
Neville Alexander’s Struggle Against Racial Capitalism
The late South African intellectual and activist—imprisoned on Robben Island alongside Nelson Mandela—fought for a world without race and class.
How Misreading Adam Smith Helped Spawn Deaths of Despair
A Nobel Prize–winning economist reflects on the dire consequences of libertarian economics.
Can Innovation Serve the Public Good?
Not as it’s traditionally done, but there are more equitable models.
The Localist
Why did Chicago become the headquarters of free market fundamentalism? Adam Smith offers a clue.
AI and the Specter of Automation
In a just world, productivity-enhancing technology would create more leisure and prosperity for everyone.