RECOMMENDED READING
The free-market policymakers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries have “an empirical problem,” said Oren Cass, J.D. ’12, founder and chief economist of the conservative think tank American Compass.
“The stuff they were doing on economics did not work.”
Cass, author of “The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America” (2018), argued in a talk last week hosted by the Department of Government that the era’s Republicans, with their focus on deregulation and unfettered trade, marked a departure from the party’s longer, more productive traditions of building the economy by bolstering the labor force.
Recommended Reading
Economists Are in the Wilderness. Can They Find a Way Back to Influence?
Economists have long helped to shape policy on issues like taxes and health care. But flawed forecasts and arcane language have cost them credibility.
Conservatism in the Crisis
THE ECONOMIST—With delightful British spelling, The Economist reports on American Compass: “an impressive organisation” of the “dissident faction … led by some of the most interesting conservative thinkers” that rejects “market fundamentalism.”
The Economic Theory Behind J.D. Vance’s Populism
New York Times host Ezra Klein interviews chief economist Oren Cass to discuss the ideological battle within the GOP.
