When laissez-faire creates instability, the move to a freer market can be something less than pure gain.

Henry Ford, in a sense, was the first Keynesian. He paid his assembly workers high wages so they could afford to buy his cars.

In practice, a good deal of the outcomes produced by the market reflect nothing more than luck - good or bad.

American critics of welfare statism are often surprised to learn that countries like West Germany, with a much more comprehensive welfare state and a statistically larger public sector, have fewer government employees per capita than the United States does.

The economic illusion is the belief that social justice is bad for economic growth.

For over a century, popular struggles in the democracies have used the nation-state to temper raw capitalism. The power of voters has offset the power of capital. But as national barriers have come down in the name of freer commerce, so has the capacity of governments to manage capitalism in a broad public interest. So the real issue is not "trade" but democratic governance.

If social security depresses savings rates, it is only because it is unfunded.