Howard Gleckman isn't what you'd call a radical. As a fellow at the centrist Urban think tank and a member of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, he's about as careful as economists get. So when he surveys the current state of American capitalism and declares it "a game with which I am not familiar," people should listen, and listen closely. Capitalism, after all, isn't a state of nature. It's the system that happens when the economic rules and rewards are arranged in a certain way. One of its requirements is that those who gamble on reward also bear responsibility for risk. The question Gleckman asks is whether that rule is still in place, and if not, has anyone really thought through the implications of the change?
