The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets

by Thomas Philippon

The best summary of my priors is probably that I am a free market liberal. I believe that free markets work best, provided that we agree on what we mean by “free” markets. I believe that markets are free when they are not subject to arbitrary political interference and when incumbents are not artificially protected from competitive new entrants. Keeping the markets free sometimes requires government interventions, but markets are certainly not free when governments expropriate private property, when incumbents are allowed to suppress competition, or when they successfully lobby to protect their rents. I am also liberal in the sense that I believe that reducing inequality is a worthwhile goal. I don’t believe that inequality is evil. Inequality is necessary to reward success and punish failure, and it would be pointless to argue against that. But I believe that, on balance, there are more forces in our economic system pushing toward excessive, unjust, or inefficient inequality than there are forces pushing toward excessive equality. These