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Image of classified documents and Russia and US leaders shaking hands.

A Newly Declassified Memo Sheds Light on America’s Post-Cold War Mistakes

This remarkably prescient document holds several lessons about how to run foreign policy.
by Fred Kaplan via Slate on December 23, 2024
Political cartoon depicting busts of Ronald Reagan, Milton Friedman, and Alan Greenspan on a mantle with spider webs.

The End of Milton Friedman’s Reign

The Chicago school ruled supreme over economics—until recently.
by Patrick Iber via The New Republic on November 13, 2023
Bill Clinton in the background, another man in the foreground.

What the 1990s Did to America

The Law and Economics movement was one front in the decades-long advance of a revived free-market ideology that became the new American consensus.
by Henry M. J. Tonks via Public Books on May 17, 2023
Naomi Oreskes, sitting with her hands resting on her knees

America's Toxic Romance With the Free Market

How market fundamentalists convinced Americans to loathe government.
by Naomi Oreskes, Claudia Dreifus via The Nation on February 17, 2023
Collage-style design of Milton Friedman and his work

The End of Friedmanomics

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.
by Zachary D. Carter via The New Republic on June 17, 2021
Working-class Irish family.

What Made the Irish Famine So Deadly

The Great Hunger was a modern event, shaped by the belief that the poor are the authors of their own misery and that the market must be obeyed at all costs.
by Fintan O’Toole via The New Yorker on March 10, 2025
Kamala Harris

The Democrats’ “Opportunity” Pitch Is a Dead End

The meritocratic pitch was emblematic of Democrats’ long march away from working-class voters.
by Lily Geismer via Jacobin on December 11, 2024
Scale with hundred-dollar bills weighing down one side.

Markets and the Law

Neoliberalism isn’t just a set of economic precepts—it’s also an architecture of laws passed to reinforce those precepts. Those laws must be changed.
by Amy Kapczynski via Democracy Journal on June 24, 2024
Soy plantation fields.

Hating the Heartland

Do Americans in rural places really “marinate in a sense of loss and perpetual disappointment”?
by Paul Schwenessen via Law & Liberty on May 29, 2024
Hand throwing crumpled dollar bills into pile

Extravagances of Neoliberalism

On how the fringe ideas of a set of American neoliberals became a new and pervasive way of life.
by Melinda Cooper, Benjamin Kunkel via The Baffler on May 13, 2024
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1933 presidential inauguration.

The First New Deal

Planning, market coordination, and the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933.
by Sanjukta Paul via Phenomenal World on March 28, 2024
Economist Milton Friedman poses next to a bust sculpture of himself

The Century of Milton Friedman

An interview with Jennifer Burns on her authoritative new biography of the American economist and the personal and intellectual origins of his theories.
by Jennifer Burns, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins via The Nation on February 5, 2024
Collage illustration of a civil rights protest, inflated gas prices, and a Richard Nixon campaign poster.

Why America Abandoned the Greatest Economy in History

Was the country’s turn toward free-market fundamentalism driven by race, class, or something else? Yes.
by Rogé Karma via The Atlantic on November 25, 2023
Milton Friedman in front of a graph.

The Myth of the Friedman Doctrine

Friedman's viewpoint went far deeper and has been more lasting than the politics of 1970.
by Kyle Edward Williams via The Hedgehog Review on November 1, 2023
Friedrich Hayek listens to the president of the Centro de Estudios Públicos in Chile, Jorge Cauas, speak in April 1981.

Neoliberal Economists Like Milton Friedman Cheered on Augusto Pinochet’s Dictatorship

Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman helped devise Pinochet's economic agenda and endorsed the brutal repression that was needed to force it through.
by Jessica Whyte via Jacobin on September 11, 2023
Illustration of workers designed like they are a part of a technological apparatus.

How Stanford Helped Capitalism Take Over the World

The ruthless logic driving our economy can be traced back to 19th-century Palo Alto.
by Sammy Feldblum via The Chronicle of Higher Education on July 20, 2023
Axe chopping down columns

The Rise and Fall of Neoliberalism

The free market used to be touted as the cure for all our problems; now it’s taken to be the cause of them.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on July 17, 2023
Shredded "Don't Tread On Me" flag.

The Long Afterlife of Libertarianism

As a movement, it has imploded. As a credo, it’s here to stay.
by Benjamin Wallace-Wells via The New Yorker on May 29, 2023
The Federal Reserve building under ominous black clouds.

The Federal Reserve Exists to Protect The Economic Status Quo

What is the Federal Reserve, and who put it in charge? Is there no other way to fight inflation? Just what the hell is going on here?
by Rob Larson via Current Affairs on May 15, 2023
Agosto Pinochet and Milton Friedman edited to appear as two sides of the same coin.

When Milton Friedman Met Pinochet

Chicago economists had free rein in Chile. The country is still recovering.
by Patrick Iber via The New Republic on May 15, 2023
A hammer is shown breaking several chunks of the earth into smaller pieces. In the background, black space.

The Wonderful Death of a State

For market radicals and neo-Confederates, secession is the path to a world that’s socially divided but economically integrated—separate but global.
by Quinn Slobodian via The Baffler on April 4, 2023
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
partner

The Big Business Campaign That Has Shaped 40 Years of GOP Rhetoric

The philosophy that drives the GOP's attacks on government and how it has fueled some of our biggest problems.
by Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway via Made By History on March 9, 2023
A shattered painting of Adam Smith.

The Betrayal of Adam Smith

How conservatives made him their icon and distorted his ideas.
by Kim Phillips-Fein via The New Republic on February 27, 2023
President Bill Clinton speaks about the North American Free Trade Agreement at a town hall meeting in 1993.

The Logic of Capitalist Accumulation Explains Neoliberalism

Gary Gerstle’s new book tackles important questions of the last century about democracy, economy, and war. But it fails to answer a basic question.
by Colin Gordon via Catalyst on February 6, 2023
1877 political cartoon of a skeleton descending on a railroad, reading "the rioters' railroad to ruin."

Strikers, Octopi, and Visible Hands: The Railroad and American Capitalism

The railroad company remains a site for Americans to grapple with key questions about the nature of American capitalism.
by Scott Huffard via Clio and the Contemporary on December 20, 2022
Adam Smith.

The Contradictions of Adam Smith

Smith's influence on American politics, and the misunderstanding at the heart of our idea of the "champion of capitalism."
by Glory M. Liu, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins via The Nation on December 14, 2022
Statue of Liberty's torch.

Why the Philosophers Libertarians Love Always Come Out Worse for Wear

Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek have been through the wringer.
by Rebecca Brenner Graham via Slate on December 5, 2022
Illustration of Economists in Different Positions in the Government

May God Save Us From Economists

Over the last half-century, economics has infiltrated parts of the federal government where it has no business intruding.
by Timothy Noah via The New Republic on October 25, 2022
Illustration of a fist smashing a tiny blue academic building.

The 50-Year War on Higher Education

To understand today’s political battles, you need to know how they began.
by Ellen Schrecker via The Chronicle of Higher Education on October 14, 2022
Collage of various Republican faces and symbols.

The Long Unraveling of the Republican Party

Three books explore a history of fractious extremism that predates Donald Trump.
by Kim Phillips-Fein via The Atlantic on September 6, 2022
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