Economic Policy

Economics follows the wrong model of physics. Keynes appreciated that jobs, savings, and growth are all relative.

During the postwar boom, it seemed that mass unemployment had been cured forever. A mixed economy–based on activist government, deficit spending, public investment, strong trade-unionism, a welfare state, and a warfare state–kept the industrial West on a high-growth path. Living standards rose steadily. Satisfied voters returned to office politicians who believed in this model. Not […]

Deficit obsession is a sure recipe for sluggish growth.

Two cheers for the Gore Report. The vice president is good on repairing the means, oddly silent on the ends.

Economics as a subject matter and, in its more than slightly fragile way, as a science, has two notable features. There is a plausible characteristic of the economy, well supported by both analysis and experience, that gets relatively little mention. And there is a related aspect of the economic system that is wholly proscribed in […]

Let’s have responsive government, but in the end a citizen cannot be reduced to a consumer.

With mass unemployment again afflicting the world, it’s time to rediscover Keynes — the real Keynes.