The Sources of American Decline

“It is not a correct deduction from the Principles of Economics that enlightened self-interest always operates in the public interest.” Thus John Maynard Keynes in an essay written in 1926 whose title Robert Kuttner has borrowed for this stunning excoriation and analysis of the damage done, and the ills suffered, as a consequence of the American
persistence in that incorrect deduction. The End of Laissez-Faire is a book that Keynes himself would have relished, rolling his eyes heavenward at the follies committed in the name of preserving capitalism’s virtue, never mind the price.

The End of Laissez-Faire does not refer to the end of a reliance on the market system as the principal mea...