These Truths
This period of government growth includes the Progressive era and the New Deal, the two major inspirations for left-leaning thinkers today. Despite the anticorporate bias of some left-wing thinkers, the New Deal and Progressive era initiatives were a direct result of the growth of big business and the rise of a consumer society. Big government and
... See moreTyler Cowen • The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better: A Penguin eSpecial from Dutton
And so, as the pandemic shut down cities and states, half the country looked to science and the other half looked to Trump. Americans didn’t look to one another because there was no longer any trust between them. Into this void government by the people collapsed, leaving the unelected elites and the elected demagogue to battle it out. The struggle
... See moreGeorge Packer • Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal
Perhaps the greatest consequence of the Chicago Smith was the way it served to reframe the problems of modern American capitalism and modern society as problems that stemmed from government, rather than the market itself.
Glory M. Liu • Adam Smith’s America: How a Scottish Philosopher Became an Icon of American Capitalism
Mill held that truth emerges from an unfettered competition of ideas and that individual character is most improved when allowed to find its own way uncoerced. That vision was insufficient for 20th-century American liberalism.