laissez-faire

Common conceptions of Carter are all wrong because they don’t acknowledge a crucial reality: he was a conservative.

Trump's second term echoes 19th-century policies: tariffs and immigration limits protect workers, while deregulation risks widening inequality.

The paths the country took out of that earlier crisis offer valuable lessons for what we should do now, and what we should fear.

In an era of laissez-faire governance, a growing number of federal and state regulations were justified as necessary to protect public health and morality.

Freedom and prosperity are the most effective cure for the scars of slavery and racism.

The GE exec was known for his big personality. He should be known for the role he played in creating America's toxic corporate culture on a base of inequality.

We owe at least part of the 2008 financial crisis to Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism.

Does the term clarify or confuse our understanding of capitalism today?

Trump is not alone in his support for tariffs. Henry Carey also believed tariffs could help American workers.

Spencerism in America.

The populist turn in our politics is best understood as a revival of old categories of political economy.

Celebrating the composer’s 150th birthday, at a festival in Bloomington, Indiana.

In "Counterrevolution," Melinda Cooper reads the 1970s economic crisis as an elite revolt rather than proof of the New Deal order’s unsustainability.

Stephen Breyer criticizes recent Supreme Court decisions and argues for a more pragmatic jurisprudence.

Why introductory economics courses continued to teach zombie ideas from before economics became an empirical discipline.

In which “the intellectual handmaidens of the capitalists” are taken to task.

The 2007–2008 crisis was an epic clusterfuck. The rise of private equity has only made things worse.

Why did Chicago become the headquarters of free market fundamentalism? Adam Smith offers a clue.

How conservatives made him their icon and distorted his ideas.

High unemployment is extremely dangerous.

Now is a critical time to acquire a better understanding of this misunderstood and oversimplified philosophy known as Neomercantilism.

A conversation with historian Gary Gerstle about understanding neoliberalism as a bipartisan worldview and how the political order it ushered in has crumbled. 

The newly conservative court may target the decision that allows for a minimum wage.

Historian Robin Einhorn reflects on Americans’ complicated relationship to taxes, from the colonial period through the Civil War to the tax revolts of the 1980s.

How microeconomic reasoning took over the very institutions of American governance.

A new book aims to recover the Constitution’s pivotal role in shaping claims of justice and equality.

The legacy of slavery is often invoked to explain the stunted welfare state. But the strongest resistance to taxation and redistribution came from the Northern ruling class.

A concept that took hold in the ’70s has haunted everything from seat belts to masks—and experts won't let it die.

Why a policy agenda adopted in the name of entrepreneurs hurt entrepreneurs more than it helped them.

The famed economist’s theories were embraced by Beltway power brokers in both parties. Finally, a Democratic president is turning the page on a legacy of ruin.