O n March 11, 1993, the Wall Street Journal published a long editorial-page article called “The Industrial Policy Hoax.” It was by Karl Zinsmeister, a scholar associated with the American Enterprise Institute who in the past had written mainly about U.S. social policy. The article, which was a summary version of a much longer essay […]
Books, Arts and Culture
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Can Economists Save Economics?
Economics is what economists do. –Jacob Viner T he trouble with Professor Viner’s delicate evasion is that economists no longer agree about what they do, or even whether it is all worth doing. Critics outside the profession long faulted economists for a host of sins: their deductive method, their formalism, their over-reliance on arcane algebra, […]
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Whose Body Politic?
The boundaries between public and private are murkier than ever.
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Talk of the Tube: How To Get Teledemocracy Right
If we are realistic and appropriately modest, television can enhance democratic deliberation.
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Passion, Memory, and Politics, 1992
F rom its founding nearly three years ago, The American Prospect has sought to help reconstruct a plausible and persuasive liberalism. This issue’s cluster of articles concerned with a public investment strategy for economic growth exemplifies that purpose: substantive, detailed thinking about how to solve the nation’s problems, rather than symbolic gestures. Yet, as this […]
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Domestic Urges, Foreign Obsessions
Constructive engagement with the post-Cold War world requires both a stronger America and clearer global goals. Domestic reconstruction must be a priority—but beware isolationism.
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From Crisis to Working Majority
Reports of the death of the Democrats are greatly exaggerated. Three new books, despite their author’s pessimism, suggest how to reconstruct the party’s middle-class foundations.
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The Remedy is More Speech
Slurs against groups may be painful, but suppressing speech is not the answer.
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Civility and Its Discontents
You are a college president facing a student accused of scrawling racial epithets on campus. Should you expel him?
