America and the World

The fantasy of free trade still commands broad allegiance despite mounting evidence that it’s not optimal for either economic growth or national interest.

The globalized economy disarms the nation-state. We need a blend of familiar Keynesian insights and new institutions.

NAFTA defenders say Mexico can’t lure high-wage jobs away, but they are already heading across the border — and the treaty will only make matters worse.

I n the former Soviet empire, the collapse of Communism created an opportunity for the victims of one failed utopian ideology to find another. The evaporating Soviet system left an ideological vacuum that was quickly filled as legions of Western advisers arrived to help translate the goals of political democracy and a market economy into […]

Laissez faire was planned. —Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation,1944 T he collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe demonstrated the failure of a command economy. The subsequent crash in output and employment induced by “shock therapy” has suggested the limits of laissez faire. Rather than replace the excesses of communism with excesses of capitalism, it is […]

The trade problem is much bigger than the treaty.

If not, he will be their slave.