People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent

Nobel Prize-winning economist Stiglitz (economics, Columbia; The Price of Inequality) draws a political and economic roadmap for the promotion of equitable prosperity in the United States. The author states that widespread prosperity cannot be achieved by unfettered capitalism or by the Trump Administration's current combination of tax cuts for the wealthy, environmental and financial deregulation, nativism, and protectionism. Many Trump supporters, he says, felt betrayed by the elites who touted economic growth through globalization and financial deregulation. Stiglitz presents evidence for declining American prosperity, growing anticompetitiveness, mismanaged globalization, a dysfunctional financial sector, and disruptive technology. Effective government, stresses Stiglitz, is crucial to promoting collective action and reining in contesting factions. He calls for voting and governmental reforms to restore majority rule and for the advancement of a national economic dynamism that would provide widespread opportunity with social protection of the environment, health care, housing, education, and retirement.