Rethinking Political Economy

This series asks how we build a new world after forty years of market fundamentalism. We debate new ways to think about protecting the planet, the relationship of equality and democracy, the need for racially inclusive prosperity, the promise of industrial policy, the dangers of concentrated economic power, and a revival of investment in public goods.

Generously supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Housing Is a Social Good

The American Jobs Plan mirrors past efforts at affordable housing that contributed to our problems and failed Black Americans. We need to take housing out of the private market.

AI’s Future Doesn’t Have to Be Dystopian

AI can be used for good—but only if we modify our approach.

Why Aren’t We Talking about Farmers in India?

They are fighting in a global war over the future of agriculture. Modi is chocking the debate.

One Simple Policy to Save Welfare

Direct payments to families should replace backdoor tax breaks.

Portrait of the United States as a Developing Country

Dispelling myths of entrepreneurial exceptionalism, a sweeping new history of U.S. capitalism finds that economic gains have always been driven by the state.

The Monstrosity of Maritime Capitalism

Two books unmask the colossal shipping industry behind global trade.

“Progress for People of Color Doesn’t Come at White Folks’ Expense”

A conversation with Heather C. McGhee about the zero-sum thinking that has long dominated American attitudes to race and wealth—and how to organize to secure public goods for everyone.

Employers, Not Immigrants, Hurt American Workers

Non-college-educated U.S.-born workers have every reason to be enraged by declining wages and living standards, but more restrictive immigration policies won’t solve these problems.

Amazon after Bessemer

Unions are just one element of a broader push to transform the company. Coalitions forged during the pandemic point the way forward—with a radical vision of worker and community control.

The Politics of the Anthropocene in a World After Neoliberalism

Can today’s crises inspire action at the scales required to think about planetary sustainability?

How Law Made Neoliberalism

If we are to emerge from this era of crisis, we need legal thinking that operates on fundamentally different presumptions.

From Revolution to Reformism

Leaders of the left abandoned the language of transformation in the 1980s—at a cost. Can it be regained?

Time Is the Universal Measure of Freedom

Labor activists once understood time to be a checking mechanism on market activity.

Realizing a Green Future

A transcript of our panel discussion on the Green New Deal and our new issue, Climate Action.

What We Still Get Wrong About Alexander Hamilton

Far from a partisan for free markets, the Founding Father insisted on the need for economic planning. We need more of that vision today.

The Gadfly of American Plutocracy

Thorstein Veblen was the most important economic thinker of the Gilded Age.

Why Privatization Is Wrong

It threatens the very foundation of political legitimacy.

We Need Political—Not Technological—Innovation

It is popular movements that drive climate politics forward.

How to Fix the Climate

Diplomacy isn’t enough. To decarbonize the economy, we must integrate bottom-up, local experimentation with top-down, global cooperation.

How Latin America Reimagined Classical Economics

The region has a long legacy of critical engagement with classical political economy, helping to change the way we think about markets and morals.

The World Henry Ford Made

On the global legacy of Fordist mass production—and its appeal on both the left and the right.

Political Economy After Neoliberalism

The government—not the market—is the only viable solution to some of our greatest challenges.

Rethinking Political Economy

Rejecting market fundamentalism, Rethinking Political Economy will provide space for advancing alternatives—in theory, politics, and policy—to the neoliberalism of the last forty years.

In the Shadow of Reagan

Only a few decades old, the corporate autocracy the former president unleashed on the United States is not natural law. It had to be created, and it can also be undone.

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