Class & Inequality

Back Down to Earth

The “moonshots” proposed could not be accomplished without a transformation of politics as we know it.

Steering Finance

Industrial policy must not lose sight of underlying economic issues.

Industrial Policy Requires Experimentation

Setting a mission requires bold leadership, but following through requires learning and iterative experimentation.

State of Emergency

The answer cannot lie in the sound creation of an “industrial policy,” however ambitious. We need wholesale structural reform.

Why We Need an Agency for National Technology Strategy

While missions are important, even more important are new institutions that will cut a path across them.

Getting Down to Cases

Public policy needs to make some hard choices about priorities and strategies.

Industrial Policy’s Comeback

We need a mission-oriented approach to the economy that embraces an active role for government in spurring growth and innovation.

The Classroom in Crisis

Education is not inherently liberatory: it has always been an arena for broader struggles over who has access to knowledge and to what ends learning is put.

The Specter of Inflation

Democrats don’t lose elections because of rising prices. They lose when they cut spending and raise interest rates, sacrificing other goals at the altar of price stability.

How Not to Fix Gentrification

The community development industry has failed in the fight for fair housing. Despite claiming to involve residents, power and self-interest still have the final say.

Beyond Neoliberal Trade

With globalization under increasing scrutiny, national governments are poised to exert more power over markets.

Workplace Training in the Age of AI

To support the work of the future, we must promote workers’ skills as crucial to technological progress.

We Don’t Know, But Let’s Try It

For economist Albert O. Hirschman, social planning meant creative experimentation rather than theoretical certainty.

Why Neoliberalism Needs Neofascists

We’re witnessing the last-ditch effort of neoliberal capitalism to rescue itself from crisis.

China and the Lure of Global Capitalism

The country’s explosive development has relied on markets—at the cost of earlier ideals.

Neoliberalism’s Bailout Problem

Mainstream economics ignores the massive government interventions that “free market” capitalism requires.

Our Insurance Dystopia

Private insurance companies have long dominated the provision of social security in the United States, but resistance is growing.

In the Common Interest

How a grassroots movement of American farmers laid the foundation for state intervention in the economy.

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.

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.

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